Well, give it up for Brampton Canada, a suburb of Ontario and located mercifully close to actual beaver wisdom. They are taking this finding wonderfully in stride.
BUSY BEAVERS: Brampton to explore management measures for local stormwater management ponds
No, it’s not an alligator floating in the pond behind your house.
Brampton councillor Rowena Santos has been getting calls about one of Canada’s iconic animals taking up residence in local storm water management ponds in the city. The humble beaver, it appears, is making its way into Brampton and enjoying the swampy, sheltered digs around local subdivisions.
“We’re starting to get a beaver issue,” Santos said at a special council meeting on Nov. 16.
She said that from her understanding, beavers were coming downstream from Caledon and making homes in Brampton storm water ponds.She said the province has legislation for managing beavers in northern Ontario, but not in urban areas.
According to Credit Valley Conservation, beavers like storm water management ponds.
“Stormwater management ponds provide suitable habitats for beavers especially when built next to their natural stream and wetland habitats,” said Scott Sampson, manager, Natural Heritage Management at Credit Valley Conservation.
Okay so here’s where the usual article recommends trapping and says that beavers are aggressive and can cause beaver fever. Are you going to do that?
He said beavers are important for healthy ecosystems. When they build dams, it creates a wetland habitat for countless other important species such as fish, birds and amphibians.
“As such, CVC recognizes that beavers help restore, maintain, and enhance ecosystem health, diversity, and resilience in the Credit River Watershed,” Sampson said.
Beaver management is the responsibility of the landowner, in this case, the City of Brampton. The CVC has spoken to the City on a number of occasions about beavers and have a few suggestions. One is to build fencing and install beaver guards on trees and shrubs. The CVC also suggests pond levellers, which are pipes that keep water flowing through past the dams. Levellers have already been installed at some ponds, one being at Steeles Avenue and Creditview Road.
The item was referred to the Dec. 7 council meeting to talk about possible solutions.
Hot dam! Beavers are important to the ecosystem! I almost never read that in the same article talking about storm water ponds. I think I will send Scott a copy of the thesis saying that even where they don’t build dams their bank lodge holes are shown to have greater fish density and diversity too.
