Where there is water and trees, you can often find Canada’s national animal, the beaver — and in Regina, they’re building their dams everywhere.
“They’re cutting all these trees and they’re storing them in the water for their food stash,” trapper Ryan Demchynski said.
“This time of year, beavers are active 24 hours a day.”
While the beavers are busy preparing for winter, officials are asking residents to notify the city should they encounter one so that city workers can take action to protect trees.
“What we do is we wrap the trees with a paging wire so the beavers will come up to them and see that they can’t get through to the tree,” said Ray Morgan, the City of Regina’s director of parks and open spaces.
The city is monitoring about 12 beavers in the area to ensure they aren’t causing too much damage.
If the rodent is especially pesky, it will be moved to another location. In extreme cases, the beavers will be put down.
“Trees are an asset to the city of Regina — we don’t have too many naturally grown trees, so we want to preserve anything we can,” Morgan said.
“Plus, when beavers do knock down trees, they are dragging the branches they are using as a food source and are plugging up culverts.”
Demchynski said it could be a hard winter for beavers due to drought conditions drying up creeks and sloughs in some areas.
In the meantime, Demchynski notes, if you do cross paths with a beaver, it’s best to just watch it from afar and not get too close — if cornered, they can get aggressive.