First an update: More lemonade last night, as I heard from several folks that the beaver mural story was on the KCBS and KRON yesterday. And five people emailed to ask when the festival was so they could bring their families. My my my the city might deserve a fruitbasket for thoughtfully promoting our cause. Hmmm.
In the mean time here’s a WTF article from Ottawa Canada where they’ve decided to put the Conservancy in charge of ripping out dams and hiring trappers to kill beavers. In a creative bit of local activism farmers say there are too many beavers to kill all by themselves, and since the animals aren’t lemmings they formed a collective group called “Drain Wolford” to force the ministry of natural resources to get the local Conservancy to take over the job.
The agreement came out of a June 28 meeting in Merrickville between the RVCA, the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), the municipalities, and members of Drain Wolford, a citizens group concerned that piecemeal efforts to breach the large dams along the Rideau could flood private and public land.
The RVCA estimates the final price tag to breach 25 dams along the Rideau later this fall will be $5,000, with the conservation authority, both municipalities, and the benefitting landowners contributing $1,250 each.
Never mind that ripping out 25 beaver dams and killing upwards of 100 beavers will decimate untold numbers of birds, and salmonids…never mind that there are better tools and smarter ways to solve these problems and a conservancy should be thinking of CONSERVATION. This conservancy obviously conserves FARMLAND.
What? It’s a thing.
