SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn. — A southeast Shelby County woman is desperate for help after battling some unwanted guests for the last few months.
The woman, who didn’t want to be identified, said beavers are taking over her neighborhood and are now making their way into her yard. A photo shows what the Richwood neighborhood in southeast Shelby County used to look like.
But now it looks like this.
“One day I was sitting on a park bench and I noticed there was an animal in the water and it flapped down, and I was like ‘Okay, that’s a beaver,'” she said.
She said she’s watched the beavers destroy her neighborhood for the last several months, eating the trees and stealing the branches to build their dam in the pond behind her house.
It’s been upsetting, but now she says they’re too close for comfort.
“Just a few days ago I was out walking and I noticed a part of my fence was missing. And when I looked closer, I noticed the same cuts that were in the trees in the island and the perimeter of the pond was also in the tree in my backyard,” she said.
The cuts in her tree resemble this one, where either end is chewed down to a point until the tree falls over. Now she’s worried the tree in her yard will fall and take out her fence.
She brought this to the attention of the HOA months ago, but she said the problem has never been properly addressed. This time when she called, they told her they aren’t responsible for acts of nature.
“I interpret acts of nature as something you can’t control like a storm or a tornado. You can’t catch the storm, you can’t stop the storm. That is an act of nature. But we can catch a beaver. We can trap a beaver. If you catch it, cage it, or kill it, you can still stop this before it becomes widespread,” the woman said.
She has tried to protect her yard the best she can by fixing the fence and putting up chicken wire, and even bricks to stop them. But she said something more permanent needs to be done.
We reached out to Crye Leike, who manages the HOA. They said they’ve had a hard time finding the right person to tend to the issue, but someone should be coming out on Friday to assess.
