"It's disgusting," said Ellen Kinsinger, a resident who resigned from the Greystone Homeowner's Association over the decision."Killing them should be a last resort."

Gina Wilson, a board member with Carolina Animal Activists Together, a local animal-rights organization, agreed.

"It would really be a shame that a community would resort to drowning them," she said. "It's not the right thing to do."

But Woody Burnette, of Capstone Drive resident, who is a member of the homeowner's board, said the neighborhood has no choice.

Because beavers are classified as "water rodents," killing them is legal, but catching and releasing them is not -- because that doesn't solve anything.

"You're taking your problem and giving it to someone else," said Kate Pipkin, a biologist with the state Wildlife Resources Commission.

Added Burnette: "It would be like having big rats in your house and moving them."

For more than two years, beavers have thrived in Greystone's three lakes and its several streams.

Some residents said the beavers turn the lake areas into war zones, stopping up waterways and transforming expensive landscaping into murky ponds. Hungry for bark, they chew on trees and rip up young -- and often pricey --saplings.

"They are, as the saying goes, busy as beavers," said Brian C. Wessler, president of Charleston Management Corp., which oversees Greystone.

Residents have spent a combined $3,500 to put cages on trees to protect the bark and for "beaver deceivers," which are submerged pipes that keep water flowing.

The deceivers are effective, but now there are too many beavers to install more pipes, Wessler said.

The neighborhood also covered several culverts with netting, but the beavers went around it.

Frustrated residents even destroyed dams, but the beavers built more.

"Apparently they are very ingenious and have found other ways to adapt," Wessler said.

That's why the Greystone board voted 7-3 to trap the beavers in underwater cages.

Pipkin said it is a quick, painless and effective method.

"This is like a big mousetrap. It is an instantaneous death," she said. "It does not hold them and they drown. It literally snaps their neck."

But animal-rights activists question whether it will always work so efficiently.

Stephanie Boyles of People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals, whom Kissinger contacted for help, said the traps often miss the neck and snag a limb, causing the beavers to be held underwater and slowly drown. It can take more than 20 minutes, she said.

The thought upsets B.K. Herring-Shapiro, who lives on Valley Lakes Drive.

"I think that's a horrible way to kill them," she said.

And, added Boyles, the solution would be temporary, because new beavers would move in.

"It doesn't even solve the problem," she said. "It just becomes a vicious trap-and-kill cycle."

If Greystone sticks with the cages on trees and culverts, the beavers will eventually get frustrated and leave, Boyles said.

But Burnette, who lives closest to the beavers, said that won't work.

"I think we've tried enough," he said. "We need to take a more direct and positive action."

Herring-Shapiro's husband, Jay Shapiro, a Greystone board member who voted against the traps, said the best option is to just live with the beavers.

"Everybody bought property here because it feels like the country," he said. "To turn around and say, 'This is the country, they have no right to be here' is cold.

"This is a case where there are lives at stake. Not human lives, but they're lives," Shapiro added. "I think there's some serious moral issues, too."

That's caused at least two trappers to turn the job down. The men, who wouldn't give their names, said they'll only do the job if this debate is settled. And that seems unlikely to happen soon.

This is not Greystone's first battle with uninvited animals.

Last spring, hundreds of geese chewed up lawns and sullied greenways.There was talk of killing the birds, but residents instead coated unfertilized eggs with corn oil to prevent hatching.

Jay Shapiro said that killing the beavers would be admitting defeat.

"These guys are a trip," he said. "It's like a battle of wits."

Staff writer Dawn Wotapka can be reached at 836-4953 or dwotapka@newsobserver.com.