Remember when Detroit was excited to see beavers again after a century of setting the river on fire?  Well that’s over. Short welcome committee eh?

DNR kills some beavers on Detroit’s Belle Isle

A decade ago, beavers returned to Detroit’s Belle Isle for the first time in a century, causing celebration among environmentalists. But now it seems the rodents have worn out their welcome on Detroit’s island park, or at least with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, which has run it since 2014. On Thursday, the department announced it had killed some beavers during a Belle Isle Park Advisory Committee meeting.

Ron Olson, DNR’s chief of parks and recreation, confirms that the department killed four beavers on Belle Isle and the nearby Milliken State Park. Olson tells Metro Times the DNR isn’t trying to exterminate the aquatic mammals from the parks, but only trying to keep their population in check. Each pair of beavers has around four young, and around this time of year, they start moving out of their dens and establishing their own territories.

“We’re not trying to eradicate beavers on Belle Isle,” Olson says. “Beavers move around the Detroit River quite prolifically, and we believe there are probably as many as eight beavers on Belle Isle, which is a lot.”

Eight? How did you arrive at the conclusion that there are 8 beavers? Did they eat 8 trees? Are there 8 dams? I’m going to go out on a limb and bet that you didn’t film 8 beavers swimming together on a night cam so HOW DO YOU KNOW?

Funny think about beaver populations. If too many show up they drive them away. When a single family reaches 8 members the yearlings will move on to find their own territory.  Your little traps aren’t needed to control the population.

The beavers have been causing a nuisance for the DNR since 2017, when they started felling willow trees along the park’s scenic Lake Okonka. At the time, DNR started installing wire fences around the existing willow trees, and discussed possibly relocating the animals.

But Olson says the beaver population on Belle Isle is starting to cause other problems. Aside from eating the willow trees, the beavers are causing some flooding in the park’s wooded areas. At Milliken State Park, a wetland there is used as a naturalized stormwater management facility. In recent years, the Detroit area has seen an influx of flooding due to storms with increasing severity, which officials have said are likely caused by warming temperatures brought by human-led climate change. “We can’t have a beaver dam up that waterway,” Olson says.

Oh NO!!! If beavers build enough dams in that area the road will stop flooding! Thank goodness you killed them in time.

“Let us all have a moment of silence for those no longer busy Belle Isle beavers,” Chris Martin wrote on Facebook. “There must be a more humane way to treat our mammalian cousins.”

“I agree,” wrote Micki Skwiera Patterson. “Possibly a catch and release program? It’s a sad way considering it’s nature taking its course. ?”

Melissa McLeod, a self-taught nature photographer who shares her photos of Motor City wildlife on Instagram as @feral_detroit, says she has been spotting beavers on Belle Isle for the past five years.

“I’m really shocked,” McLeod tells Metro Times. “It was like a huge deal because they hadn’t been spotted in like a century.”

Uh oh. Now you might have a problem on your hands. First you had BEAVERS and that was bad enough. And NOW you have people who care about beavers and that’s wayyyyyy worse.

It only takes a spark to get a fire going, you know.

After years of observing the aquatic creatures, McLeod says she felt an affinity for them. “I for sure felt a connection,” she says. “And also, I mean, they’re a keystone species. They play a way more important role in the environment than willow trees, not that the willow trees don’t matter. But I’m thinking it’s more of an issue of cosmetics.”

McLeod says she has seen the fallen willow trees regrow. “I could take you and show you that if they’re cut a certain way, the tree doesn’t die,” she says. “You can see the stump and then shoots start growing out of it. So those trees may not even be dead.”

An Affinity! Say it isn’t so! One day you find yourself with an affinity for beavers and the next you wake up and they’ve changed your entire life and you’re planning the thirteenth festival and you have a mural painted on your doorstep. I’m warning you, get out while there’s still time!

DNR has reported an increase in attendance since it took over the park in 2014, under an emergency management agreement reached by former Governor Rick Snyder and former emergency manager Kevyn Orr. Since DNR took over, tens of millions of dollars of investments have been made to the park.

“I think it’s kind of a competition between, you know, who gets to shape Belle Isle more, us or them?” McLeod wonders. “And of course, it’s going to be us.”

Maybe. You’d be surprised what a difference some beavers can make.