Texas Offers to Take In Doomed Beavers

In the saga of the Lake Skinner beavers, state wildlife officials Wednesday said they were weighing an offer by a Texas animal sanctuary to take the rodents so they won’t be killed by marksmen for destroying a bird habitat.

Ten of the 20 targeted beavers have been trapped and relocated to area zoos and other facilities, and the state Department of Fish and Game said that homes for three more have been identified. The remaining animals, after being safely removed from the lake shore, will be destroyed because they are ruining the nesting habitat of two species of endangered songbirds, officials say.

A wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center near San Antonio says that it will take any remaining beavers, with the blessing of Texas wildlife officials.

California officials were undecided Wednesday whether to accept the Texas offer. Among their concerns, said Fish and Game spokesman Jack Edwards, is the fate of the beavers.

“The real question,” he said, “is whether they will be made pets and stuck in people’s backyards, or be placed in a facility that is most appropriate for them. We don’t want to allow the animals to be transported to another state unless we’re sure they’ll end up in an appropriate habitat.”

Edwards said it is unclear when the state will make its decision. The trapping will continue in the meantime.

The official who issues permits for wildlife facilities in Texas said the sanctuary offering to take the Lake Skinner beavers is qualified to accommodate them. “Texas doesn’t have a problem with this,” said Rosie Roegner of the Texas parks and wildlife office.

California officials’ lack of a decision is maddening, said Mitchell Wagner, an attorney for Friends of Lake Skinner Wildlife, an organization formed to fight the beaver trapping.

“The only thing that keeps them from [killing the beavers] is the constant glare of media exposure and public scrutiny,” Wagner said.

The Department of Fish and Game issued the beaver-removal permits at the request of a consortium of federal, state and county agencies that operate a wildlife reserve alongside Lake Skinner in Temecula, because of the damage the beavers were doing to the bird habitat.

A Riverside County Superior Court judge Monday refused to stop the trapping, saying that concerns for the endangered birds outweighed the beavers’ fate.

When no more live beavers can be accommodated at approved facilities, the trapping will end and marksmen will shoot the remaining rodents, officials have said.