Verdun beaver trapping 'cruel,' says councillor Sterling Downey

Verdun’s solution to an exploding beaver population is to hire trappers to move — and sometimes kill, according to a city councillor — bothersome beavers.

Now city councillor Sterling Downey is calling on the borough to stop hiring trappers and to look for more animal-friendly solutions to wrangle the beavers.

"Catching and killing beavers is cruel and really damages biodiversity," Downey said in a news release.

"On top of that, capturing and moving beavers is not a permanent solution to managing the urban beaver overpopulation," he continued.

He said Nuns’ Island residents are upset about beavers causing damage to the area.

He said urban wildlife is an issue all over the island of Montreal, and the boroughs and city need to find better solutions for managing it.

A risk to residents, borough mayor says

But Verdun borough Mayor Jean-François Parenteau isn't backing down.

Parenteau says the borough has tried other options and found them ineffective.

He says last year, the borough put out three times the normal number of cages and only trapped one beaver.

Over that period, more than  200 trees were knocked down by beavers, which Parenteau says poses a risk to residents.

"It's a question of the security of the population," said Parenteau. "We are a city, and it's dangerous when the trees go down."