Management program aims to tackle Mackenzie Delta's pesky beaver problem

The Mackenzie Delta has a beaver problem, and the Inuvialuit Game Council is hoping to combat it through a beaver management program.

The council has partnered with the N.W.T. Department of Environment and Natural Resources to run the program for a second time. The council first ran the program last fall.

The first time the program was offered, the department gave $50 to harvesters across the delta in exchange for the beaver carcass.

This time around, the price has gone up to $100, in exchange for samples of a beaver — including the skull, the baculum of the male beaver, and the castor, according to Marsha Branigan, the manager of wildlife management in the Inuvik region.

Locals say beavers have become pervasive to their way of life.

"Every community in the Beaufort Delta has [an] overabundance of [beavers]," said John Lucas Jr., the chair of the Inuvialuit Game Council. "They are blocking creeks and … reshaping the Delta with the dams, and it's affecting our travel routes."

In the last week alone, the department received about 100 beaver samples from harvesters in Aklavik, N.W.T. after the ice finally cleared in the water there, said Branigan.

The Inuvialuit Game Council wants to remind people to not waste leftover parts of the beaver.

"You must either use the hide or the meat," said Lucas Jr.

The program ends June 10. That's when the hunters and trappers committees feel the hides will no longer be good quality, "due to breeding and warm weather," said Lucas Jr.

Sample kits are available from each community's hunters and trappers committee or the Environment and Natural Resources office.