Olive branch extended to Fish Creek Park beavers in bid to reduce flooding

Himanshu Sangale admits Fish Creek Park beavers might not initially appreciate he and his team altering their dams.

But he said when the mostly-volunteer team set to laying a pipe through their woody structure near Bebo Grove in the park’s west side on Saturday, the aquatic mammals weren’t in sight.

“We weren’t there at dawn or dusk (when they’re most active) but they might have objected if they were,” said Sangale, a volunteer with the Friends of Fish Creek Provincial Park Society.

What the team did was create a notch in the beaver dam to fit a pipe in it that would better drain a pond towards Fish Creek downstream.

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It’s work that should lower the water level by 10 cm to prevent the pond from backing up and flooding nearby pathways and damaging the asphalt, said Sangale.

At the same time, it allows the beavers, thought to number about five at the site, to continue making the pond their home, he said.

“It’s a solution we’ve had from over a decade of coexistence … the beavers are still permitted to make their dam and store their food there for the winter,” said Sangale.

The team also cages one end of the pipe to prevent the beavers from damming it or becoming trapped in it, he added.

On Sunday, the group, which will include volunteers from the group Youth Central, will perform similar work in the park’s east end in wetlands near Sikome Lake.

When the lake is drained next month, a series of beaver dams can hamper the outflow of a large, sudden volume of water and sediment, and adding pipes to their dams addresses that, said Sangale. It allows lake water to flow more freely into the Bow River, he said.

Without that assistance, that draining “can overload the wetland’s capacity to distribute the water,” said Sangale.

The team will also ensure existing pipes that extend about 10 metres are still functioning properly in an area of the park where the beaver presence is considerably greater than at Bebo, he said.