Los Banos Rotary Club History
Rotary
Speaker Tells Of Beavers
Arthur L. Hensley, head
of the State Fish and Game, Bureau of Fur Management, Tuesday noon gave members
of the local Rotary Club a brief resume of the life, habitat and importance of
a little-known California animal, the beaver. Declaring that California’s
fur resources is the least understood of all our natural resources, Hensley told
of the time, a hundred years ago, when trapping of fur animals was foremost of
California’s industries.
Fur trapping was unregulated until 1917,
Hensley said, and at that time the state’s fur resources had been depleated
almost to the point of extinction. Since then, sound management practice, regulated
seasons and maximum allowed kill have stabilized the industry and the annual fur
crop today is almost holding its own.
Surprisingly, Hensley declared,
beaver were becoming a pest in some valley sections of the state, and it has become
necessary to live-trap them for removal into less populated sections where their
dam-building practices are beneficial to soil erosion, to improved fishing, and
growth of cattle feed. A state trapper, Hensley said, is in the Los Banos area
at the present time, trapping Golden Beaver for removal to the northern Sierra
foothill section.
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