Beaver Tales is not a funny story
If the saga of the Beavers of Stanton Drain and their forest friends wasn’t so sadly real it would be worthy of a Monty Python skit.
On the one hand you have a pair of beavers that love to build dams. They’ve chosen Stanton Drain, which runs through a natural heritage wetland in Hyde Park, as home.
While it can’t be argued the damming beavers are exclusively responsible for the menagerie of frogs, salamanders, other reptiles and mammals, and 37 bird species that also shares this little spot, they’ve certainly contributed in large measure.
It can’t even be argued the beavers are the central story. Their part may be symbolic more than anything – but lordy as symbols go they’ve got it huge.
Snappy intro to the McLeod report, a fairly formal commentary blog from Philip McLeod the journalist in London Ontario. I love the way he describes the beaver pond as essential to countless species of wildlife, and then goes step by step outlining the pickle the city has gotten itself into. Call me crazy but I think that if Storm Water Ponds (SWPs) are going to be linked using an existing creek as a flood channel then the SWP become part of the creek, not the other way round. (Key word POND) Anyway, every creek is technically a SWP. That’s what creeks do. Hold and direct water during storms. Didn’t you know?
I suppose you will argue that SWPs are manmade and concrete, to which I would say most creeks have WAY more manmade concrete (or sheetpile) in them than they should so that really doesn’t delineate the two. Also since whatever name you call it, a beaver or otter or steelhead might move into it, you had better bite the bullet and learn how to control beavers humanely and install a culvert fence or flow device if you need one.
Even if you successfully get rid of these more will be back and we’ll be having this conversation next year or the year after that. Do it right, help wildlife, soothe the protesters and the property owners and save yourself from next year’s headache.
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Three beavers last night again braving a super high tide. Junior from over the primary dam, mom (?) from up there as well afterward, and Dad’s big form seen emerging for the second time from the bank hole downstream by the third dam they’ve been working on. Here’s a glimpse of the happy family:
