So what’s a beleaguered farmer to do? Although beavers can create serious problems, getting rid of them isn’t the only option — or even the best one, in many cases.
For starters, finding ways to co-exist with them can make economic sense. “You can spend thousands a year on trapping and dam removal, but you’re actually not addressing the root problem, which is you are in a beaver habitat,” Joe Abercrombie, president of Humane Solutions — a wildlife and pest-control company that serves B.C.’s Lower Mainland, Islands and the Okanagan explains.
Learning to live with the ones you’ve got also keeps others from setting up shop, because beavers are territorial. “You know those beavers are there,” says Abercrombie. “It’s predictable. It’s stable.”
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