The City is taking necessary and ongoing measures to achieve an appropriate balance between beaver preservation, public safety and the prevention of flooding and other related damage that comes from beaver activities in urban areas.

• In cases where beaver activity does not negatively impact a specific drainage catchment area, we do not intervene.
• Where beaver activity negatively impacts the City's drainage system, or property damage has occurred, we commence remedial work while attempting to minimize the impacts upon the beavers.
• Intervention activities, such as tree wrapping with wire and the removal of dam building materials, are undertaken to attempt to maintain sustainable water levels for beavers and to allow community drainage systems to function properly.
• The City also installs pond-leveling devices to maintain adequate water flow and provide fish access upstream of ponds.
• We continue to monitor beaver activity to determine the extent of impacts upon particular drainage systems.

The City is aware that there are alternatives to trapping and staff investigate these as they are brought forward. The City also continues to consult with other municipalities, provincial agencies and private sector consultants to evaluate viable solutions for managing the beaver population and minimizing the hazards and damage caused by beaver activities.

To that end, the City uses a number of provincially approved methods in an attempt to manage the beavers in the various watersheds throughout the community:

• A combination of the techniques noted above seem to achieve the best results; however in some instances, the methods and systems we have implemented have not been sustainable.
• The more trees we wrap, the further inland the beavers travel to cut down trees for dam building activities.
• The more materials we remove from the dam, the more trees the beavers cut down, which devastates the surrounding environment and landscapes.
• Beaver dams, culverts and levelling devices require constant monitoring and cleaning as beavers continue to bring in more materials to build dams and plug pond levelling devices.
• Without sufficient numbers of natural predators in the area, the rate of beaver proliferation has increased throughout watersheds within the community.
• The additional beaver populations move away from their original habitat and establish new ponds throughout the watershed or create new wetlands (flooded areas) adjacent to the watershed.

When it does become necessary to use trapping to remediate a flooding, property damage or public safety risk, the City hires a provincially licenced trapper. The traps are set only in targeted areas and are submerged under water. Traps are not placed on the trails and/or in locations where leashed pets or children would be likely to go.