MOUNTAIN BEAVER - How to Trap Them in a Live Trap?

[Chet43]

Are Mountain beaver a nuisance and is there a season on them?  Is there an easy way to live trap them to show the grand-kids living on the property?  How skilled do you have to be to trap them? What would you use as bait?

[Oh Mah]

unclassified-may be hunted or trapped year  round. ?

[Oh Mah]

WAC 232-12-142  RCW 77-15-192  RCW 77-15-250  WAC 232-12-271

[greenhead_killer]

What’s the difference between them and reg beavers? Am I missing something?

[Skyvalhunter]

Talk about mean little SOB's. There was one on a logging road and my friend walked up to it and it chased him right up the cut bank. Must be related to a wolverine the way it acted

[Oh Mah]

Supposedly not related to any other in any way.

[Oh Mah]

https://wdfw.wa.gov/living/mtn_beavers.html

[Humptulips]

Mountain beaver, Aplodontia Rufa are the only living member of their genus. In fact their family diverged from other rodents at least 23 million years ago so you can see they are a pretty distant relative of North American Beaver, Castor Canadensis.

[JBar]

They dont seem to be a very robust critter, my GSP has killed 3 or 4 of them, couple shakes and done!

[vandeman17]

Those suckers are a pain. We get them at our property and they can do some damage. As far as I know, they are fair game

[Cylvertip]

I have heard them called "boomers." Anyone know why?   I have asked before and never gotten an answer.

[Trapper John]

I have heard them called "boomers." Anyone know why?   I have asked before and never gotten an answer.

I have heard them being called that for years.  The only ones that use that name are trappers down in Oregon.  Up here in Washington I have always heard and called them Mt. Beaver.
JC   


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The mountain beaver (Aplodontia rufa)[Note 1] is a North American rodent. It is the only living member of its genus, Aplodontia, and family, Aplodontiidae.[2] It should not be confused with true North American and Eurasian beavers, to which it is not closely related.

Other names include mountain boomer, ground bear, giant mole, gehalis, sewellel, suwellel, showhurll, showtl, and showte, as well as a number of Chinookan and other Native American terms; "mountain boomer" is a misnomer, and the animal does not make the characteristic tail slapping sound of the true beaver species. See Carraway and Verts, 1993.

[Humptulips]

I have heard them called "boomers." Anyone know why?   I have asked before and never gotten an answer.

In the early 20th century there were quite a few people that moved from Appalachia to Oregon. In certain parts of Appalachia there is a type of squirrel that apparently makes a booming sound at times and so is called a boomer. When these people settled in Oregon, Mountain Beavers reminded them of these squirrels. Apparently just in their looks as the Oregon boomer doesn't make the booming sound. Anyway the name stuck. North of The Columbia never saw immigration from those areas to any extent so we went with Mountain Beaver.

[Cylvertip]

Thanks for the info. 

[Axle]

An old 'back woods' trapper taught me how to trap when I lived in SW Oregon back in the '70s. I caught a mountain beaver one day and didn't know what it was so I took it over to his house. I always drove over to his house every time I would catch something interesting. His house was built in the late 1800s and the siding was 1x boards like you would see on a fence. There was no insulation but he had a nice wood stove that held a fire all night. He was too lazy to make improvements to the house.
Anyway, the old guy told me it was a mountain boomer. I thought it was part of his slang but still had no idea what it was. He offered to take it to the taxidermist and I let him. The taxidermist said it would cost $68 to have it mounted. I didn't have that kind of money and had no interest in a mount anyway. I just let him have it to do what he wanted with it.
For years after that, I would tell people I caught a mountain boomer. They would ask what it was. My reply - 'I haven't the foggiest idea'.