Rural councillors are tired of battling booming beaver populations in northern Saskatchewan, with some calling for a bounty on the aquatic rodent.
Representatives from several rural municipalities will take their concerns about the problems created by beavers to the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) mid-term convention, which begins today in Saskatoon.
"They're just having babies, babies, babies and damming, damming, damming up the water," said Colin Hughes, a councillor for the RM of Canwood, located about 170 kilometres north of Saskatoon.
His RM will ask SARM to support a resolution to lobby the provincial government to initiate a beaver bounty. Along with the calls for the bounty come resolutions to lobby the government for compensation for flooded farmland and to reinstate a 50 per cent cost-shared program with the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority for the clearing of culverts and streams.
Councillors say the beavers are causing financial hardship for municipalities by damming culverts. Water then floods rural roads and farmland. This year's wet spring made the problem worse.
"Nobody takes responsibility and the farmer is losing acres, production and productive land," said Hughes.
Landowners in the area are losing pasture land, hay land, woodlots and land used for grain farming. Flooding created by the beaver dams is also washing out rural roads.
"It's affecting all of us," Hughes said.
The RM has spent a large amount of money employing people to clean out culverts dammed up by the beavers, a problem not limited to the area.
In the RM of Porcupine, about 290 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, two employees spent nearly six hours each day throughout the summer cleaning up beaver dams.
"It's especially been magnified this year with the wet conditions," said Dean Lanning, a councillor in the RM of Porcupine. "It's cost us a lot of money."
His RM has put forward the resolution to establish a $20 bounty per beaver.
Trappers do not make enough money from beaver pelts to warrant catching the animal, which is why the councillors believe there must be a financial incentive in place in order to control the population.
Between November 2009 and March 31, 2010, the provincial government offered a bounty on coyotes, which offered $20 per animal killed.
The program was successful in reducing populations of coyotes, and councillors say they believe the beaver population could be similarly controlled.
Councillors would also like compensation for farmland damaged by beavers, similar to the compensation offered to farmers whose land is disturbed by free-range plains bison in the RM of Canwood.
No one from the province was available to speak to the issue on Monday.
According to online information from the Ministry of Environment, the beaver was close to extinction in the province in the early 1900s. Strict conservation measures were put into place in 1946 and the population has since boomed.
The government recognizes the benefits beavers may have in nourishing water ecosystems, but also the nuisance they create, which the government says is curbed by increased trapping, removing dams and installing pipes to allow water to drain from culverts.
Those having problems with beavers on their property are advised to contact an area conservation officer.
By Jeanette Stewart, The StarPhoenix
Beaver bounty
