Well this isn’t a story you read every day, although it SHOULD be as common as dirt. Seems this family loved the wetlands behind their vacation home and were heartbroken when the beaver dam maintaining it was breached and all the water drained away to nothing, taking their beautiful oasis with it.

Ontario family gutted after decades-old beaver dam breaks, draining massive pond on property

When Lorraine Fuller and her husband bought their Apsley, Ont. property over 15 years ago, it was brimming with wildlife thanks to the wetland that made up their backyard. But seemingly overnight, the pond was drained with no animal in sight.

Over the years they have owned this vacation home, located about 45 minutes north of Peterborough, Fuller said she has seen blue herons, a variety of ducks, turtles, otters, frogs, salamanders, and beavers.

Since it’s a 100-acre lot, Fuller said they bought an amphibious vehicle that could take them from one side of the property to the other out on the water. She adds they also recently built a bunkie in November – which set them back about $75,000 – at the top of the property overlooking the wetland.

About two weeks ago, on April 8, Fuller said her husband thought he noticed the water level looked extremely low, but adds the half-inch of snow and ice likely hid everything – so they left without investigating.

“We went up on the 22nd of April to discover no water, or something that appeared to look like a moon surface,” Fuller said, adding she felt “absolutely gutted.”

That’s how it feels to have beaver devastation in your backyard. No birds. No otters. No muskrats. Just miles and miles of mud as far as the eye can see. Maybe a few flailing fish flapping in a drying puddle. I feel your pain.

The formerly pristine wetland was held intact by a massive beaver dam on a neighbouring property that was constructed decades ago, according to Fuller – even long before she and her husband bought the property.

“It’s probably been the better part of 100 years that created this pond, so the actual dam that was compromised is huge,” she said, adding the dam was around six to eight feet high.

Now, it looks like about a six-foot chunk was taken out of that dam, Fuller said.

“There’s a little waterfall that’s emptied out the entire pond, and it’s still flowing today because there was quite a bit of water in that pond.”

How the dam was destroyed remains a mystery to Fuller.

“It’s very clearly been broken, but I don’t know how it was broken,” she said. “The forces of nature can be very, very strong […] So was it ice and water? Was it someone who did it? Was it the forces of nature? I don’t know.”

Did you talk to your neighbors and ask them about this? They might have been fed up with the beaver dam and taken matters into their own hands. You should find out.

But, Fuller is in the process of trying to figure out what exactly happened and to try and get it rebuilt as soon as possible, adding she has reached out to the municipality, Conservations Authority and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. She also plans to contact her neighbour to see what they know about what happened.

A spokesperson for the Conservation Authority in Crowe Valley (CVCA) told CTV News Toronto it is “difficult” to answer how they can investigate the cause of the damage, since the beaver dam could have failed due to natural occurrences or human intervention.

“I believe a biologist would be the best expert to make that determination. If it is deemed to have resulted from human activity, there is a possibility the CVCA could investigate with a follow-up site visit,” general manager Tim Pidduck said in a statement.

“However, that is complicated since there would potentially be limited access to the site if the landowner does not allow us onto the property. If this is the case, we would require a warrant to investigate what we would consider a violation of our regulation (Ont. Reg. 159/06). As well, there seems to be very little, if any, proof as to who would have potentially caused the dam to fail.”

If another beaver doesn’t take over the dam, it will be without maintenance, so it will degrade and eventually collapse, prompting the water to spill out.

“Of course, once the pond is drained, the area looks devastated and all of the flora and fauna that was dependent on the pond is now without a ‘home,’” Pidduck said. “Nature will jump into action though and the pond will turn into a beaver meadow as plants, grasses, small trees start to sprout and regenerate the area.”

Well people with money always think they can investigate what is going on and fix it. Once I was at a 250,000 person march in downtown SF to protest the start of the Iraq war and we were right behind a very white CEO-type and his very white wife who were upset we weren’t starting to move right away. He told his valet to “go on up ahead and find out what’s keeping us from moving“. And I wanted to say, that would be the other 248,000 people in front of us but of course it would have fallen on deaf ears.

Lessons learned.