They don't quite know how to cope with all the dam trouble they've got down in Hampden, Maine. And according to town manager Leslie Stanley, it doesn't look as if things will improve any in the immediate future. "We've got a real annoying problem on our hands," he says. The annoyance began in late May. About three miles outside of town a group of beavers   built a dam near the mouth of a culvert   that carries a stream under Canaan Road. Some 50 feet of roadway and several hundred feet of land on each side of the culvert were flooded. Stanley sent a road crew out to level the dam. The beavers rebuilt it. The crew tore it apart again. In fact, they tore it apart for ten mornings-and for ten straight nights the beavers rebuilt it. On the eleventh day, the foreman tossed   the problem back to the town manager. He, in turn, tossed it on to the local game warden  . The warden, absorbed in beaver knowledge, moved quietly and carefully out one night and placed a petrol-soaked bag over the dam. (Any beaver expert will tell you the creatures just can't tolerate petrol smell.) In the morning the bag was found artistically woven   into the dam. The warden set out three steel traps that night. In the morning one was empty. The other two had been stolen by the beavers and used to strengthen the dam. The warden, cursing the state law against hunting beavers with firearms, got his traps back and set them out again and again. And every night the beavers stole them. Town manager Stanley enlisted additional troops. He telephoned his police chief. Those beavers were breaking a state law against blocking up a natural watercourse. "Why aren't you out there to _ the law?" Stanley asked. "You're the police chief. So remove them. Arrest them. Do something." Three mornings later, the police chief proudly announced the end of the dam. At 2:00 A.M., he said, he and a licensed dynamiter   had blown it to small pieces. Stanley said he'd believe it when he saw it. They drove out to the culvert and found a new dam already half-built. They also found the highway choked with mud and remains thrown up by the dynamite. Stanley said maybe they should call in the Army Corps of Engineers. But the police chief's faith in explosives was unshaken. He launched an all-out campaign,but the beavers always managed to have the holes plugged by the time the fire department appeared on the scene for its morning mop-up. In time, the beavers tired of this nonsense and moved their dam "inside" the culvert-where it couldn't be blown up without destroying the road too. Stanley and his general staff held a council of war and agreed that fresh strategy was called for. Then they came up with an inspired idea. If we remove every branch of the dam by hand, we'll force the beavers to go in search of new building material to replace what we've taken. Then we can place box traps along their runways and seized them. The plan was completely approved. Moreover it worked. On July 30, town manager Stanley was able to announce that the beaver group had been trapped and removed to a remote wilderness area. And there was great joy in Hampden-until the middle of October, that is, when a group of young beavers was spotted swimming in the same waters from which its elders had recently been taken away. But to make a long story short, the strategy that worked with the older beavers worked with the young ones too. What did the local game warden do?
He made steel traps to strengthen the dam. He set out to hunt the beavers with firearms. He learned a lot about the construction of the dam. He used petrol-soaked bags to drive the beavers away.