ARCHBOLD WEATHER

Big Beaver Trapped By Two Local Men


Bottom left: Wade Schnitkey, far left, and Zach Birky, near left, trapped their first beaver between West Unity and Holiday City after Christmas. The beaver weighed between 50 and 55 pounds, well in excess of the 35- to 40-pound average. Clockwise from top left: The beaver laid out on a pickup truck tailgate; a beaver’s teeth never stop growing. They eat plants and the cambium layer of tree trunks, which is just below the bark; these trees are among those damaged by the beaver.– courtesy photos

Bottom left: Wade Schnitkey, far left, and Zach Birky, near left, trapped their first beaver between West Unity and Holiday City after Christmas. The beaver weighed between 50 and 55 pounds, well in excess of the 35- to 40-pound average. Clockwise from top left: The beaver laid out on a pickup truck tailgate; a beaver’s teeth never stop growing. They eat plants and the cambium layer of tree trunks, which is just below the bark; these trees are among those damaged by the beaver.– courtesy photos

Talk about beginner’s luck.

The first beaver caught by amateur trappers Wade Schnitkey and Zach Birky, rural Archbold, turned out to be a whopping 50-plus pounds.

Katie Dennison, wildlife biologist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife, said, “Yes, that is definitely a large beaver. The typical average size for an adult is going to be 35 to 40 pounds, so that was definitely large.

“It’s not uncommon. We have had beavers of that size reported.

“I did a quick search through some of our records, and the largest kind of confirmed beaver I could find is 72 pounds, in 1970.

“They can get larger than that, but it’s still a big beaver.”

Schnitkey said a friend of his, Tim Gerken, caught a 62-pound beaver near Goll Woods, and has caught other big ones in that area.

“A farmer wanted to get rid of this beaver because they cause a little bit of havoc. They dam up his ditch, and it causes some flooding so the tile wouldn’t work,” Schnitkey said.

 

 

The pair set their trap shortly after Christmas at a pond near the Ohio Turnpike, between West Unity and Holiday City.

The next day, Schnitkey drove out to the location. Birky was dragging the beaver up to his pickup truck.

“The farmer weighed it on a scale and it was between 50 and 55 pounds. It (the scale) wasn’t super accurate,” Schnitkey said. “It was pretty big.”

As this was the first beaver for the pair, “we were really surprised.”

In the 1800s, beaver pelts were used to make mens hats. The demand was so great, the animals were hunted to near extinction.

Schnitkey and Dennison agree that beavers are making a comeback.

“They were extirpated (hunted to near extinction locally, but still existing in other places) from the state by the 1830s,” Dennison said.

“Then in the 1930s, they started making a comeback, largely in Northeast Ohio, and that’s where they’re most densely populated.

 

 

“Since then, they’ve slowly spread out to the rest of the state, and we are seeing them more and more in the western portion of the state now.”

Schnitkey said trapping sounded like “something interesting to get into.

“It sounded like something fun to do. I had always hunted and fished, but I’m by no means an expert trapper.”

He and Birky are “going to pursue it a little more. We enjoy being outside, and the farmers appreciate it, too.”

Schnitkey said they could sell their beaver, with hide on, for 25 cents per pound; at 52 pounds, that would gross the pair $26.

“I think Zach is going to keep (it). He thought it was pretty neat. He was thinking about sending it out and getting it tanned and hang on his wall or something.”

Schnitkey said other farmers have contacted Birky “and talked about thinning them (beavers) down, because they’re cutting into their trees.

“We’ve got a couple of spots we can hopefully get a few more.”–David Pugh