By Janis Warren The Tri-City News
Apr 23 2006

A flurry of controversy over Port Coquitlam’s use of traps to control its beaver population has prompted the city to formulate a policy.
The draft policy, which has yet to be approved by city council, comes two years after a dog was killed by a beaver trap on public property.
It also comes amid dozens of complaints emailed to the city — as well as letters to The Tri-City News — about PoCo’s trapping methods.
Coun. Mike Forrest, chair of the city’s environmental protection committee, said the letter-writing campaign has resulted in “nothing but misinformation” and has taken up “a lot of staff time.” “It’s been very frustrating to read these emails,” he said Wednesday.
The draft policy is largely based on eliminating beavers should flooding occur.
Francis Cheung, PoCo’s operations director, said there are about 19 active beaver dams in PoCo — or about 40 beavers — four each located at Colodin Close (Lobb Avenue to Reeve pump station) and Maple Creek (Bedford Street to the flood box).
While the beaver dams provide wetland habitats for other wildlife, Cheung said the pesky rodents have also damaged roads, agricultural lands, and public and private property, which has led to flooding.
Last week, the city received a special permit from the ministry of Environment to re-locate four to six nuisance beavers to Rolley and Mike lakes in Golden Ears provincial park, in Maple Ridge, to repopulate beavers in those two areas. Generally, the provincial ministry doesn’t grant permits for re-location, Cheung noted.
Under PoCo’s draft policy, if beavers are posing a flood risk and they can’t be re-located, the animals will be trapped and euthanized. The city will then remove the dam and restore the watercourse, it reads.
Otherwise, if there is no flood risk, the dams won’t be touched and there will be no trapping, Cheung said.
The proposed trapping method is the Conibear — a device that has sparked much of the outrage because, residents say, it’s cruel.
Committee member Coun. Michael Wright suggested the policy doesn’t go far enough as it doesn’t deal with diseased beavers.
In that case, the city’s vector control and the Fraser Health Authority would be notified, said Allen Jensen, PoCo’s environment manager.
City council is expected to discuss the draft policy next month.