I had a note from Suzi Swanson today.  They came to open camp about a week ago and found they'd had visitors during the winter.  Here's what Suzi wrote:

Chip and I were up semi-opening the camp on Friday and Saturday, and noted that the beavers were quite busy over the fall and winter months.  They chewed down one of the two birch trees in front of our camp and they made impressive reinforcements to their waterway along the rail trail.  Quite artistic, really.  Almost a bell curve.  Their lodge is also
quite a bit taller and wider - a virtual beaver apartment complex.  We watched a few of them swim around on Friday evening collecting various things and bringing them back to their home.  They obviously were not disturbed by the warmer than usual winter.

It's no surprise the beavers would be working there - they have always been active in the channel at the north end of the pond.  They have also been active at other locations.  Last year we saw they had cut several trees between Jack and Sue LaGue's and Bill and Sandy Ricker's. 

When Fred and I lived at our camp at the intersection of Barre Ave. and W. Shore Road, there were beavers in the brook that runs past Ned and Caroline Hamilton's.  That was when Jed Rulfo was our neighbor, before the Hamilton's bought the property.  Jed had a little vegetable garden and a garage on the south side of the road, but most of the land was marsh.  The brook ran through the swamp and marshes that stretched back towards Molly's Pond, and there were several beaver houses and dams.  

It seemed that for a long time the beavers were content to work along the brook in their natural habitat and didn't bother anyone, except during the fall or early spring they'd sometimes pay us a visit and nab a tasty tree or two near the mouth of the brook.  Jed lost a mountain ash tree he was very proud of, and we lost a couple of ornamental apple trees and some maples.  We wrapped our trees loosely with chicken wire four or five feet up the trunks, and enjoyed watching them frolic in the pond in early spring as the ice was receding.   

Eventually they moved down the brook and  tried to dam up the upper side of the culvert under West Shore Road between our place and Hamilton's.  We knew if they did, the town would come and shoot them, so Fred and I would tear apart the dam almost every day before we went to work, and within a day or so it would be built up again.  We played that game for some time until we realized our tearing down their dams was not discouraging them.  We tried to have them removed to some other location, but trapping and moving them was more than anyone wanted to bother with.  Beavers were rampant and considered expendable; the price for pelts was down, so nobody bothered to trap them, the solution was to shoot them.

 That fall, one of our neighbors who had also lost several trees, shot at least a couple of them, and the town may have shot any that were left, we never knew for sure, we only knew they were gone.  

There is at least one trapper I know of these days - one of the Ackermann boys, who lives up the road from us.  He told me he will trap and move the critters, and has done so for several folks around the pond.