Myrick Creek, at milepost 145.1 of the Natchez Trace Parkway in Leake County, has a short Park Service trail, built, by the park's old brochure, to teach visitors about the beavers there; in June 2012 heavy rain and a beaver dam closed it. The park announced that heavy rains and a beaver dam had flooded the area and undermined the path, just south of Highway 429, and shut the trail until repairs could be made. Federal mapping spells the stream Myric Creek, without the k, and places it in the watershed of the Yockanookany River, part of the Pearl drainage. Beavers are native to the parkway, and a 2014 Park Service assessment counts them as important and largely beneficial members of its animal community; control is triggered only when they threaten sensitive resources.
The trouble is mostly engineering. The road crosses many rivers, streams and wetlands on bridges and culverts, and blocked or damaged drainage that threatens the roadway is among the most important harm the park attributes to beavers. Their flooding can also reach farmland and cultural sites.
Counts have been patchy. A 1979 effort recorded 18 active colonies in roughly the southern half of the parkway, and from 2002 park staff drove the road in winter noting the locations of active colonies. A 2014 Park Service assessment reported 22 known dams, distributed so that their effects appeared greatest in the northern Mississippi section of the parkway. Beaver ponds also reshape the forest around them, changing the density and make-up of tree stands, and they can breed mosquitoes and spread Giardia.
Getting there
32.8432, -89.6694
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
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