Over the summer, a pair of beavers were an attraction for people walking by a storm water pond just north of Country Hills Boulevard. However, in October, the City of Calgary hired a contractor to set traps that killed two beavers.
“When we found out they killed two beavers that we had been watching all summer, it was a lot for everybody to take in,” said Andrew Yule, president of the Nose Creek Preservation Society.
The city says the beavers had to be removed because they created a dam that was blocking an outlet that controls water levels in a storm water pond east of the community of Coventry Hills by Coving Road N. E. It resulted in high water levels in the pond, posing an increased risk of flooding in the area.
Storm water ponds clean storm water before returning it to the river and they protect communities from flooding.
The city says all available options were considered for the pond to be able to function properly and it was determined that the dam had to be removed and the beavers needed to be prevented from rebuilding it.
The city worked with a licensed contractor to remove the beavers.
The traps are placed under water for the protection of dogs, park users and other wildlife, and are checked daily.
Traps were in place for about three weeks and two beavers were removed, according to the city.
The city says trapping is a last resort but in some cases it is required to protect public infrastructure.
In natural park spaces, storm ponds can become shared habitats for animals.
“We were seeing a lot more plant life and more animal life there because it was creating a larger pond,” Yule said. “I saw more great blue heron this year than other years in that pond.
“It was really neat to watch how beavers help wetlands but at the same time you don’t want that in your infrastructure … Understandably, something had to be done.”
He’s concerned that since the beavers were destroyed, it may make people reluctant to report them to the city or to citizen science apps, which help with conservation work.
“Having the concern that if you report a beaver, it’s going to get killed is counterintuitive to what we want people to do,” Yule said.
He hopes that the city will work towards co-existence by upgrading storm water ponds so that it doesn’t happen again.
“If we were to upgrade and include a culvert-excluding device, that is going to help mitigate beaver issues,” Yule said.
He’s concerned that beavers are just going to come back, calling the trapping “a Band-Aid solution.”
“They’ve done nothing to prevent the future killing of beavers. It works for the interim. I get it. You want to protect your infrastructure, but what we’ve been pushing from the very beginning is that we need to build our infrastructure to have co-existence with our wildlife, whether it’s wildlife crossings or corridors,” Yule said.
“The infrastructure that’s right next to a wetland needs to be able to withstand animals that live in a wetland,” Yule said.
The city says relocating beavers to other areas is not an option.
Alberta Environment and Protected Areas does not support moving beavers because there is a low rate of beaver survival and an increased risk of the transfer of diseases. Relocation can also upset the balance of ecological functions and can potentially create future human-beaver conflicts, a City of Calgary spokesperson explained.
The city is working on a project that will reduce the use of trapping as a solution when beavers conflict with infrastructure.
The city has engaged interested parties, including Friends of Fish Creek, and recommendations are expected at the end of 2023.
The Friends of Fish Creek Provincial Park Society refers to beavers as “ecosystem engineers, water filtration experts and landscape artists.”
The volunteer group won the ECO Community Impact Award in 2023 for the Sikome Beaver Coexistence Project.
The initiative focused on alleviating pathway flooding in an area where beaver activity was causing severe pathway flooding and damage, while protecting the animals and their habitat.
The project has included the installation of six flow-control devices.
On Aug. 8, 2022, a team of Friends of Fish Creek volunteers and youth from WILD Outside installed a water flow control device as part of the Beaver Coexistence Project.
The City of Airdrie has also been looking at ways to help beavers co-exist. In September, council voted on focusing on beaver co-existence efforts.
The updated plan was presented to council on Sept. 18 and was adopted.
This means Airdrie will use more proactive measures such as exclusion fencing and diversionary planting to keep beavers away from mature trees further away from the Nose Creek.
“There are different types of shrubs and smaller trees that are able to recover quite quickly that beavers would utilize as food sources,” said Eugene Lund, Parks and Roads Operations Manager with the City of Airdrie.
“The report that we had done indicated that a lot of the beaver activity would occur within that 20- or 50-foot range from the edge of the water.
“The idea is: if you are able to put in diversionary planting in that particular zone — rather than the beavers heading further inland and looking for food sources from larger more mature trees — they would tend to lean towards the stuff that was in closer proximity to the water’s edge,” Lund said.
“It would be the same thing as if you were to prune in your yard. They would grow back more quickly as a result of the pruning.”
The City of Calgary says a draft report is expected in January of 2024.
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