The story of beaver and human interaction extends throughout Canadian history: from the near-extinction of the Castor canadensis for their warm pelts, to embracing them as a national icon. There is rarely ambivalence about the herbivorous mammal. The sentiment is usually love or hate. Tensions have been growing as interactions have escalated, prompted by a resurgence of the beaver population.
As some landowners and entire populations of towns are crying foul, some experts are saying that “beavers are just being beavers” and their benefits to the ecosystem are vast.
Officers in the prairie community of Porcupine Plain, Saskatchewan were sent to investigate stolen wooden fence posts. Instead of being led to human culprits, they instead found that beavers had stolen the fencing to build their dam.
In the small community of Tumbler Ridge in British Columbia, parts of underground cabling that facilitated internet service were found in a beaver dam. Nearly 1,000 customers were affected by what Telus spokeswoman Liz Sauvé called a “very unusual and uniquely Canadian turn of events”.
A beaver also shut down the Toronto metro system during the morning commute last year. Nicknamed “Rascal” he was captured and safely relocated to an area marsh.
Residents of Grenville-sur-la-Rouge, a town in Quebec, urged the eradication of its nearly 800 beavers after 200 dams put the town underwater.
“And for a species often blamed for its destructive tendencies, research continues to show their profound effect on ecosystems. Beaver dams not only help restore valuable wetlands and recharge groundwater, but also filter out sediments, nitrogen and phosphorus from water and create havens for species like fish and frogs,” according to The Guardian article.
Millions of dollars are spent annually in mitigation efforts across the country and mitigation efforts like pond levellers are becoming increasingly common, according to the article.
Still, experts believe that fully blaming the beavers is not always fair, particularly since they are often reacting to how humans are changing the environment.
“Where we place our development matters. And how we envision nature interacting with our built structures also has to come into play when we design them,” Glynnis Hood, a professor of environmental science at the University of Alberta who has long studied beavers and their effects on water systems, told The Guardian.