Move over graffiti artists, the city of Durango has a new set of misfits.

Parks and Recreation sent crews Monday and Tuesday to remove three cottonwoods along the Animas River Trail after beavers downed two trees and left one of them on the verge of falling.

“Parks and Recreation viewed (the trees) as a hazard and they sent out crews to cut down the (damaged) ones so they weren’t going to fall on the trail,” said Tom Sluis, spokesman for the city.

The beavers chewed through and felled two trees. Staff were able to catch a third tree that was leaning toward the trail before it fell, said Scott McClain, assistant parks director for Durango.

The city usually wraps wire meshing around the base of trees along the river bank to protect them from beavers, but Parks and Recreation staff members had removed the mesh from the trees after the trees started growing into the wire.

“They had pulled the wire mesh off to replace it and hadn’t gotten back to get new meshing back on there,” McClain said.

Rumors have swirled on social media about Colorado Parks and Wildlife removing and killing the beavers, but the agency aims to leave the animals alone and only on rare occasions removes and relocates beavers, said John Livingston, spokesman for CPW’s southwest region.

“Beavers are part of the landscape and they can be very beneficial, but they can be a bit destructive,” he said. “We’re not going out and culling beavers by any means. That’s not something we do.”

Counties and local municipalities will often set aside money to hire government trappers to remove beavers and other animals if conflict arises, but CPW sticks to relocation and education, he said.

Even though CPW has relocation as a tool, the agency rarely uses it.

“The timing with relocating beavers can be tricky,” Livingston said. “What we tend to do is recommend to landowners ways they can prevent beavers from chewing up their trees. We always tend to gear toward teaching the public how to live with wildlife, instead of trying to just remove a problem.”

CPW recommends wrapping hardware cloth, a sturdy metal mesh, or electric fencing around the base of trees to prevent beaver damage.

The agency’s website also highlights a concoction of sand and paint to ward off beavers. Homeowners and land managers can mix 5 ounces of mason sand with 1 quart of exterior latex paint and spread the mixture on the bottom 3½ feet of trees.

Ted Holteen, spokesman for La Plata County, said the county had no involvement with the beavers along the Animas River.

Though it might seem odd to have beavers in the city, Livingston said they live along rivers throughout the region.

“The Animas River, the Dolores River, the Piedra River all have beavers,” he said. “... We’ve got a lot of good beaver habitat all over Colorado, but definitely here in the Southwest as well.”

CPW does not have a population estimate for the number of beavers that live along the Animas, but Livingston said it’s not uncommon for beavers to appear up and down the river and in other bodies of water in the Durango area.

The three trees damaged by beavers along the Animas River Trail will not go to waste.

Instead of going to beaver dams and lodges, they will go to the city’s mulch pile, which is later distributed to the public for landscaping in the summer, McClain said.

As for the beavers, Parks and Recreation plans to keep their eyes out for further damage. If the beavers continue to chew the trees, the department will look to trap and relocate the beavers.

“We’ll keep watching it, and if it looks like we’re going to continue to have a problem, then that’s probably where we’ll go next,” McClain said.

Trail users concerned about safety issues, such as a tree falling across a trail, can reach Parks and Recreation on the weekends or afterhours by calling 911, McClain said.

ahannon@durangoherald.com

A previous version of this story erred in saying no trees fell as a result of beavers chewing through them. Beavers chewed through two trees causing them to fall, and Parks and Recreation cut down a third tree that was close to falling across the Animas River Trail.