2023-09-27 13:45:00
“We don’t want to kill a beaver, but we kill people”
Caroline De Smet is trying hard to get rid of beaver dams on her property. ©ÉdA
For six years, Caroline De Smet has been fighting for what belongs to her, that is to say the roof over her head and the land around it. Every month, it loses surface area, “the fault of the beavers,” she says.
You only have to walk around the property, boots on, to see the considerable damage caused by mammals. Dams at eye height, large holes in the garden, marshy ground and worse still, a house that may no longer stand up for long.
Distraught, Caroline De Smet explains: “Every year, the land is flooded. The house no longer dries out, I have to light the wood stove every day. The chalet takes on more and more humidity and is more and more more damaged.” Indeed, between the buckling walls, the cracking floor and the sagging ceiling, the owner of the place fears the worst, even more so as winter approaches. “My land, however, is not considered at risk for flooding,” she says. “And it is difficult to clean everything following each one.”
The DNF, who must be contacted in the event of a problem with beavers, visited the site on several occasions. “He does not want to intervene to catch the beavers because he believes that the land does not belong to me. I then went to the Commune and yes, the land belongs to me,” said the owner. The mayor of La Roche said that he cannot intervene if the DNF does not intervene first. I had to dig trenches myself around my house. It can be swept away in a few moments since the foundations are weakened.” With her feet in the water, Caroline De Smet tries as best she can to destroy the dams on her land herself. “We don’t want to kill a beaver, but we kill people,” she regrets.
“This all has a cost”
If Caroline De Smet says she can’t find help anywhere, it seems that her insurance doesn’t support her either. “She doesn’t want to intervene as long as there is no water in the house and because the damage is caused by beavers,” she said. “I will only receive €7,000 for the damage due to the humidity, but I’m not going to do anything with this amount, with the price of materials increasing. A contractor, who came here, is not optimistic. Obviously, the insurance does not agree with him.” The fifty-year-old therefore tries to find tips on her own. “I put gravel in front of the house so that the ground is dry,” she continues. “All of this has a cost. I am told to call a lawyer. But how long will that take? months? Years? It will be too late.” Caroline De Smet, exhausted, intends to call on the Minister of Nature and Forests Céline Tellier. “I’m just asking for help. I can’t sleep anymore. It’s no longer a life, it’s permanent stress. I’m afraid as soon as it rains. The DNF says that the dams located higher up in the river are solid. But if they break, it will be terrible for me. Psychologically and physically, it is very difficult. I don’t want to sell.” One thing is certain, the more humidity the property absorbs, the less easy it will be to stay living there.
For their part, the DNF and the Commune explain their respective positions. If the DNF intends to intervene once more, the Municipality has done what it might.
For its part, the Department of Nature and Forests (DNF) is defending itself. “Indeed, this has been going on for years,” explains spokesperson Nicolas Yernaux. “We have already done a lot of things at Ms. De Smet and we are going to do more. We have already destroyed dams and we are going to intervene once more soon to destroy a larger one to prevent the day it gives way, the water does not rise up to his house. But you need to know one thing, the beaver is a protected species and there is a balance to find . We are not going to give permanent shooting authorizations. Beavers will always be present on your property and you have to learn to live with them.”
Nicolas Yernaux continues by mentioning the site in question: “It is a site that the beavers appreciate because it is near the Ourthe and I do not think that they will leave. We cannot propose radical solutions. It is better to let the beavers consolidate what already exists rather than let them create other dams elsewhere which will pose a problem. You should also know that we are on a valley floor, this remains a particularly humid place, it is still a other problem than the beaver. We are going to propose solutions with the biologists from the Department of the Study of the Natural and Agricultural Environment (DEMNA).”
“We are at the end of what we can do”
On the side of the Commune, Mayor Guy Gilloteaux claims to have advised Caroline De Smet to call on a lawyer “in order to refer the matter to the justice of the peace,” he says. “For our part, we are at the end of what we can do “We do not have authority over the beavers or over the upstream land on which the dams are located and which are private property. We have a need to maintain the waterways, yes, but at some point, we do not doesn’t know how to do much anymore. We don’t have the power to destroy the dams or the animals since we must have authorization from the DNF. On our own initiative, we can’t do anything.”
Some dams are at eye height, like this one. ©ÉdA
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