Furbearer Resources Technical Work Group - International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Chelmsford, Massachusetts is located about 20 miles northwest of the city of Boston and encompasses approximately 23 square miles. The first European settlement in the area was a fur trading post, established due to the abundance of beaver in the local wetlands.
Local government is conducted through open town meetings and administered by five elected selectmen.
Exactly in accordance with such direction, an article to ban trapping was introduced at a Chelmsford town meeting in 1988. Beaver use woody plants for food and building materials for their lodges and dams. State wildlife experts reminded residents that regulated trapping was not a public safety issue, and warned that if regulated trapping were banned, there would be numerous undesirable consequences in the form of property damage and wildlife habitat degradation. Despite the warnings, the article was passed, and the trapping of furbearing mammals within the town was prohibited. Prior to passage of the trapping ban, there were usually one to three complaints of beaver damage in the town each year.