Winnipeg is the largest city in Manitoba Canada, just northeast of North Dakota. Being so near Saskatchewan their beaver IQs are predictably not the highest – although things are slowly moving from the lower registers. At least this article discusses wrapping trees. But.check out the muskrat photo they chose to tell their brave woes recently.

Winnipeg should stop killing problem beavers, St. James resident says

After sending a city-hired trapper off his property, a St. James homeowner is demanding Winnipeg change its policy on killing problem beavers.

Chad Hepp came home on June 1 to find a contractor setting up a lethal trap on the small beaver lodge abutting his backyard.

Complaints about beavers in the area started in 2012, said City of Winnipeg spokesperson Ken Allen in an email. The city responded by wrapping trees with wire mesh, to keep beavers from chewing on the trees, on both sides of the Assiniboine River every year since.

This is the first time since the complaints were made that the city set kill traps in the area to prevent further damage, Allen said.  “The homeowner who requested assistance with trapping also wrapped all of the larger trees in their backyard; however, the beavers started taking down trees in their front yard,” Allen said.

Hepp, who lives on the river side of Assiniboine Avenue, said no one from the city asked for his permission before setting up the traps. The hunter and fisherman believes two beavers live in the lodge — a mother and kit.

“I’m concerned some general contractor that works part time for the city can come onto somebody’s property and make a call like that,” he said. “I had to ask him to leave, politely.”

Mr. Hepp is a rare breed among men. He is upset that beavers would be lethally trapped (an objection of which we approve) and has wrapped trees in his own back yard, (a precaution which we applaud). So far so good. However, his shall we say romantic notion of the lodge containing only a beaver mother and kit  pair begs a little education.

“A single beaver is able to damage hundreds of trees each year. Beavers are only removed when there are no other options available to mitigate the damage they are causing.”

Winnipeg opts to kill beavers because the rodents can spread diseases if they are moved. Beavers are also territorial and if they are moved, will come into conflict with any beavers already living in the new location.

“Removal of beavers, when necessary, is conducted by a licensed trapper under approved provincial regulations utilizing humane trapping techniques,” said Allen.

Beavers will cause diseases if moved? You mean spread whatever they already have to other beavers? Or you mean like the plague, like make humans sick? Regardless of the ridiculous notion, Martinez doesn’t deserve to laugh at this because when CDFG agreed to relocate two of our beavers after much refusing they said they would first need to complete 6 weeks of quarantine. Which Lindsey Wildlife generously offered to be responsible for.

Of course the two beavers they agreed to relocate after quickly dispatching their family members would have probably died in that time anyway, so let’s just be thankful that never happened.

For Hepp, who lives closest to the lodge, the beavers have never posed a problem aside from an esthetic one — the jumble of sticks and tree limbs isn’t exactly pretty to look at.

“I get that they’ve probably chewed down the odd sapling, somebody was trying to grow an apple tree a few years ago or whatever but hey, that’s the cost of living on the river,” Hepp said.

Beaver lodges cause an aesthetic problem? You mean they’re not pretty to look at?