TREVOR SUFFIELD Enlarge Image
(From left): George Valentim, Dallin Pawich, Christopher Kshyk and AWN coordinator Amber Wiegand at one of the trees that Westwood Collegiate students painted last week.
Students paint trees to save beavers
By: Trevor Suffield
More than 100 Westwood Collegiate students were spotted with paint brushes and cans in west Winnipeg last week. The students weren’t tagging the area with graffiti; they were painting trees along Sturgeon Creek near Grant’s Old Mill as part of a pilot project.
What a great way to start the morning! 100 college students saving trees so the cities won’t need to trap beavers! Preserving the Riparian border (gosh reminds me of something…ACE?). They are using the right ingredients: Mason sand and latex paint.
Let me just go check average snowfall for Winnipeg. Hmm 110 cm, which is like three and a half feet. So that means they would need to be painting up to the height of a standing beaver plus 3 feet…7 feet? I hope they took all that snow into account?
Well never mind, its an earnest feel-good article and heaven knows there are few enough of them. It’s teaching humane alternatives and emphasizing the importance of trees and beavers. What’s not to love? Here’s my favorite part of the article.
Wiegand said the mixture is being used in part because of community reaction to the annual trapping and killing of beavers along the creek.
Fantastic! That’s JUST what we like to hear! Thanks to the Assinobone Watershed Network for encouraging more people to adopt their creeks! It’s great work and very, very necessary. As our beaver friend Leonard Houston of SURCP sagely includes on his letterhead “Thousands have lived without love. Nothing lives without water.”
Of course, we here in Martinez have our own “Adopt-your-beavers” program, maybe you’d like to hear about it?
