Maumelle inundated with homeless beavers

"It was the most horrifying 30 seconds of my life. You don't expect this sort of thing to happen in a place like Maumelle or in the 21st century."

That's how Eugenia Branch of Maumelle described what she endured about 5:30 p.m. Jan. 6. It was a terrifying confrontation with 48 pounds of raging Castor canadensis -- one mightily cheesed-off beaver flushed from its normal habitat by the rising water of the Arkansas River.

Branch, who lives on Maumelle's trendy Riverwood Place cul-de-sac, was walking her 3-year-old Lhasa apso near the Maumelle Country Club where it borders the Rector Brake backwater of the river.

"I had little Mitzy on a 12-foot leash," Branch says. "She was barking at something down near the water's edge when that thing attacked."

According to Officer Matthew "Bud" Phlunge of the Maumelle Police Department, Branch and her dog were attacked by a rogue beaver, one of the hundreds plaguing the city in recent years. Phlunge, who was alone in his cruiser, responded to a "10-67" call near the 10th fairway.

"It was like a giant rat on steroids," Phlunge later told a reporter from the Maumelle Monitor.

"It had used its giant flat tail to cold-cock the dog and was on top of her, slashing away with its razor-like buck teeth. The citizen on the scene was beating the perpetrator with a 32-inch ScooperGenie pooper-scooper in an attempt to break them apart, but she was mostly missing in the dark."

Phlunge threw Branch aside and put 12 rounds into the rodent, which crawled off into nearby bushes and died.

Branch reports her dog took 87 stitches, but will recover, and that "the nightmare of that moment will always be with me."

Since the recent high water, Maumelle residents have reported nightly forays by roving gangs of beaver against expensive trees at homes along the river. A spokesman for Maumelle Nursery & Landscape said the company had recently replaced a rare 12-foot bifurcated Japanese maple on Samantha Lane that was devoured in a single night.

In addition, a half dozen beaver have been trapped and removed from Lake Willastein near the city's center and eight more from a backwater near Cogdell Drive that leads to Devoe Lake a short distance east of Maumelle Middle School.

Fliers have been circulated warning parents to keep small children inside after dark, and an ad hoc vigilante outfit calling itself the Maumelle Beaver Patrol has begun staking out the White Oak Bayou headwaters that run along the city's eastern outskirts.

The MBP is riding ATVs in dusk-to-dawn shifts and reports that so far 28 beaver have been intercepted crossing Murphy Drive headed for Lake Valencia.

Beleaguered Mayor Michael Watson told the Monitor that the Branch incident "underscores the necessity for pro-active intervention in controlling the potential negative impact of the animals in the wetlands adjacent to the homes along the riparian environs of the city."

Watson, sensitive to the concerns of militant environmental watchdog groups, says, "'Eradicate' is not a term we bandy about lightly" when discussing beavers, but that the city "would be open to any humane solution to this unwelcome blight upon our fair town."

Perhaps the best solution to the growing concern was voiced Tuesday by Alderman Marc Shannon, who has proposed that the Maumelle Animal Shelter subcontract with the Urban Bowhunters League to stalk the vermin.

"Darryl," spokesman for the Little Rock chapter of the UBL, said the group would welcome the challenge.

"We have several johnboats with bow platforms specially designed to hunt beaver," Darryl noted. "We could be in the water tomorrow morning. We could take those critters out in less than a week and we wouldn't charge no $5,000 for it, neither." Darryl noted that the UBL even had recipes "that make beaver tail taste like McNuggets."

Watson said the city board would consider the proposal for a "limited beaver hunt" at its monthly meeting at 7 p.m. Monday at the Maumelle Chamber of Commerce on Edgewood Drive. Public input is invited.

In the meantime, citizens are urged not to panic and "should they encounter beaver on their property, they should not take action themselves, but contact city authorities via the beaver control link at maumelle.org."

Until next time, Kalaka warns you there are unsubstantiated reports of killer capybara in the swamp east of the high school.

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HomeStyle on 01/16/2016