Thursday, February 12, 2009

Mark this case cleared

There was an interesting story on one of our local TV channels Tuesday night. Unfortunately, I'm not finding it on their website, so I'll just have to describe it. KLKN reporter Stephanie Costanzo interviewed a resident of the Thompson Creek neighborhood about an ongoing problem they are experiencing with beavers felling trees near the ponds.

Apparently efforts to trap the beaver led to a byzantine maze of State and City regulations, and a bit of frustration. Guess no one really thought that we'd be dealing with urban beaver problem in Lincoln.

Watching the story, though, I recalled this case--located just a stone's throw from the neighborhood where the beaver roam. I think we can safely mark this case cleared.

12 comments:

M Roselius said...

Chief - I know this was a little bit tongue in cheek - but - you should give some props to the officer who handled this call. In fact, I would recommend you highlight it in training that you do -

Read the notes on the report - and you get a very clear, visual picture of the entire scene. Clearly, this falls into the generally unsolvable file, and a more cynical officer might have been a little less thorough.

But statements about the lack of footprints, how high up the cut was, the fact that wood chips were all around the trunk etc.

Without that level of detail - you couldn't definitely close this case as the work of the beavers.

Seriously - to be able to revisit a report on an incident like this months later - and clearly understand every aspect of the case - it is worth a pat on the back.

Phillyun said...

3.5' above the ground?
I was under the understanding that Beavers only grew to 2 feet long. I did look and saw that one should fence to protect trees up to 3 or 4 feet, but that's also to allow for snow cover. Were any photos taken to see the tooth marks / size of chips?

Tom Casady said...

M Roselieus-

Officer Adams is very highly regarded around here for the quality of his investigations and his reports.

Phillyun-

Yikes! Monster Beavers!

Anonymous said...

This Beaver could also have chewed that high up. His last address of record is 211 Pine Street. If he denies doing it with his teeth, then he could have borrowed an axe from Gus at the firehouse, but probably gave Gus a false reason for needing the tool. At the root of it all you'll surely find one Edward Haskell, responsible for conning Beaver into thinking it would actually be a good deed to fell the trees.

Anonymous said...

Ward, you shouldn't be so hard on the Beav

Anonymous said...

Off the subject but...

Congrats to the police dog who found the guy under the tree after a hit and run. LPD has such wonderful dogs!

jenn

Anonymous said...

mebbe the parks dept. should have sprayed those trees with the "stinky fox urine" they put on evergreens to discourage folks from cutting them down for Christmas trees. I saw that Channel 8 report, and the thing that made me cringe was the reporter saying "Nebraska Games and Park officials" about six times. It's GAME and PARKS. Game refers to animals, not Monopoly!

ARRRRG!!!! said...

I guess it wasn't my prime suspect after all.

Now I have a new suspect.

Anonymous said...

Wrong Beaver.

Steve said...

I don't know how to insert a link here so I'll just give the URL for a sight you may want to visit regarding the size of a beaver. (Pyillyun)

Steve said...

Oops. I obviously don't know how to paste in a URL either. Sorry! Here it is: http://ilovebrown.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Never under estimate the ability of furry little critters to create big news stories.