Bothersome beavers banned from Yellowknife baseball field
Water from Range Lake backed up due to a beaver dam, causing Parker Park to flood
Some bothersome beavers are behind the closure of a baseball diamond in Yellowknife.
Slo-pitch players were notified on Tuesday that one of the fields at Parker Park will be closed until further notice.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) said water from nearby Range Lake backed up due to a beaver dam and caused the field to flood.
The city of Yellowknife removed some of the dam on Tuesday, but beavers "dammed it back up overnight," said Dawn Curtis, communications manager for ENR, in an email.
On Wednesday, renewable resource officers removed more of the dam and placed a live trap at the site.
"Warning signs should be in place in the area by the end of today," Curtis said Wednesday.
"We want to remind the public not to touch any live traps. They can be dangerous and could result in serious injury."
Meanwhile, the swamp on the baseball diamond has been filled in with dirt.
According to a post on Facebook by the secretary of the Yellowknife Slopitch Association, the maintenance on the field will impact games for about two weeks, so the schedule has been revised.
No one at the city of Yellowknife could be reached for comment.
Nuisance beavers in the N.W.T. have caused headlines in recent years.
Just last month wildlife officers were trying to stop a family of three beavers from taking down any more trees along the Frame Lake trail. An industrious beaver also wreaked havoc on trees around Yellowknife's former visitors' centre in 2015. They've also been spotted as far north as Tuktoyaktuk, annoying fishermen by plugging up creeks, and impacting ecosystems.
With files from Emily Blake