By Nate Wegehaupt

A Milwaukee-based environmental organization has filed an intent to sue both the federal government over their beaver management practices in Wisconsin.

Superior Bio-Conservancy is a nonprofit environmental organization working to protect water systems in the Great Lakes Region. They say that Wisconsin’s decade-old beaver management plan is outdated and unnecessarily kills thousands of beavers every year.

And, Superior Bio-Conservancy is threatening to sue the government agency that carries out the program –  the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services Division. 

By Gaby Vinick on Wisconsin Public Radio

The conservation nonprofit Superior Bio-Conservancy is taking legal action against the federal Wildlife Services division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for its alleged widespread killing of beavers, accidental otter killings and beaver dam destruction.

That division is contracted by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for a beaver management program that spans 1,800 miles of streams to protect trout, according to Bob Boucher, the president of Superior Bio-Conservancy. 
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"We are suing because this beaver elimination program violates the public trust and is directly at odds with the (Wisconsin) DNR's mission to protect and enhance our natural resources and our wildlife," Boucher said.

A Wisconsin-based environmental group has notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture it plans to file a lawsuit against the agency. Superior Bio-Conservancy says the USDA is funding Wisconsin’s program of killing beavers based on faulty beliefs.

“The Fisheries Department in Wisconsin has this dogma or belief that they're damaging trout streams, which is not true, and there's no science to uphold it,” said Bob Boucher, the president of the organization.
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In a decade the Wisconsin DNR has killed more than 28,000 beavers, destroyed nearly 15,000 beaver dams, and accidentally trapped and killed more than 1,000 river otters because the traps being used are indiscriminate...