Beavers cause trouble in Winnipeg

Wet conditions in Winnipeg have created more than a mosquito problem this summer — beavers are also moving in.

Several of the rodents caused big trouble in the city's Transcona neighbourhood last week, building a home in a waterlogged ditch on Dugald Road, just east of the golf club.

The dam blocked a culvert and prevented water from draining. That caused the ditch to flood and spill over into nearby yards.

A city crew took the dam down, but it had been rebuilt by the next morning.

City of Winnipeg naturalist Rodney Penner was called in, and he, in turn, called in a trapper.

There's no sympathy for the national symbol when it comes to blocked drains.

'The trapping techniques that are used are provincially regulated; they are humane, but they are lethal.' — Rodney Penner, naturalist for City of Winnipeg

"I love nature, and I love wildlife, but [it] comes to a point where you have to remove beavers and remove their lodgings to protect our infrastructure and our homes," said city engineer Bill Watters.

"That's something that we do."

So, the beavers were removed permanently — killed using techniques approved by the province as humane.

"The trapping techniques that are used are provincially regulated; they are humane, but they are lethal," said Penner.

Killing rather than relocating the animals is preferable because beavers can carry diseases, and moving them into a new territory can spread the disease, said Penner.

Overpopulation is another reason. According to Penner, the Manitoba Trappers Association estimates there are as many as five million beavers in the province, so there is no risk of endangerment.

Hundreds of beavers are believed to live inside the city limits, including some that burrow into the riverbank soil rather than building lodges in the water, Penner said.

The riverbank beavers can destabilize the banks and speed up erosion.

However, most live in rivers and streams and cause no problems. But they're always looking for new places to live, and in times of high water, ditches become an appealing setting, Penner said, and  and that can cause problems for the people living nearby.