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RALEIGH — Alas, poor beaver. The hangman’s noose still lingers above your buck-toothed noggin.

This is despite the best efforts of Greensboro’s lawmakers.

A bill that would have allowed the city to experiment with moving beavers from a problem spot in Latham Park to greener pastures upstream has charted a winding course through the legislature since May.

But the measure met its end in the Senate Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee this week.

“The beaver really shouldn’t be regulated by a municipality,” said Sen. Harry Brown, a Jacksonville Republican who made the motion to remove the Greensboro beaver language.

Truth be told, most legislators and lobbyists who looked at the Greensboro beaver bill were perplexed as to why city leaders were so reluctant to dispatch the varmints, whom farmers and other property owners often view as a pest.

“We spend an awful lot of time and money every year trying to control property damage from beavers,” said Paul Sherman, who works for the N.C. Farm Bureau.

The bureau was one of about a half-dozen groups, including the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, that opposed the bill. Many feared the Greensboro bill would set a precedent other communities might try to follow.

Under current law, those who trap most kinds of wildlife only have two choices: release it on the property or euthanize it. The bill that came close to passing would have allowed Greensboro to test until next July moving the beavers instead.

“If I was a beaver, I’d want them to give this a chance,” Greensboro City Councilwoman Trudy Wade said.

Rep. Pricey Harrison and Sen. Don Vaughan have taken turns shepherding the beaver legislation through its various incarnations.

The measure started as a standalone bill that passed the Senate on a voice vote and had cleared one House committee. But objections from another House committee chairman forced Harrison and Rep. John Blust to attach the measure to an omnibus environmental bill.

That bill passed the House, but members of the Senate’s Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee looked askance when they saw the language.

“I know the Republicans here are right-to-life people. By god, this is a right-to-life bill,” Vaughan told the committee, just before losing an 8-7 vote.

Officials with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission said that moving the beavers sounds humane but that it could create problems for man and beast alike.

“You’re basically moving the problem from one place to another,” said David Cobb, a biologist and chief of the Division of Wildlife Management.

There’s the risk of spreading disease, he said, and moving beavers just won’t work. The critters are likely to spread out from their new territory.

And as for their old stomping grounds, “it’s simply a matter of time before you have beavers in that area again.”

Wildlife resources officials are due to meet with Greensboro city staff next week to see if they can find a solution to the city’s beaver woes that doesn’t involve dispatching the varmints or changing the laws.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com