The Sampson County Beaver Committee was formed at the request offrustrated landowners after the county government spent more than$50,000 in eight years trying to reduce the number ofbeavers.
The county hired its own trapper. Roofer Ronnie Thompson is paid$1,500 a month to set traps in areas where landowners call for help.
The government program includes a joint state-federal managementprogram, contracts with trappers, and a per-carcass bounty.
Beavers once were prized for their heavy fur and were huntednearly to extinction by the late 1890s. In 1939, a state agencybegan restocking beaver and continued into the 1950s.
Beavers build dams that can flood and kill commercial timber andflood fields that hog farmers need to spray waste from hog lagoons.
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