Dam you! N.W.T. slaps bounty on beavers
A $100 bounty has been placed on beavers in northern Northwest Territories to reduce the population of the industrious but sometimes troublesome rodents.
Beaver-related complaints from various communities in the Mackenzie Delta have increased, primarily about beaver dams and lodges blocking fish-bearing creeks, flooding traditional travel routes, and destroying and disrupting habitat along the waterways of the Delta.
“They’re building their dams and we can’t fish at this lake anymore or that lake — beavers all over,” said Michelle Gruben with the Aklavik Hunters and Trappers Committee.
“Our hunters and trappers have been saying for a few years that beavers are a problem, we’re seeing more and more of them.”
The territorial government and community agencies have tried encouraging increased beaver hunting through training programs, take-a-kid-trapping programs and collective tanning and meat processing efforts.
The problem, however, becomes worse in the spring and summer when beaver pelts are not at their prime and can no longer be sold on the international fur auction market, making them economically undesirable prey.
To keep the beaver in the crosshairs, the Inuvialuit Game Council and territorial government’s Environment and Natural Resources department are turning to a cash bounty.
A bounty was first tried last year but hunters and trappers complained the $50 a head didn’t make it worthwhile to cover the cost of gas to go out on the land and the hard work skinning a beaver, which is an awkward animal to skin.
The bounty was boosted to $100 this year.
Beavers are not considered a pest species and the program is marketed as harvesting incentives and not a cull.
Hunters and trappers must turn in evidence of each kill — the skull, castor sacs and baculum (the penis bone) if it is a male.
They also must show an official the stretched beaver hide or packed meat as evidence the animal is being used. Program materials distributed to hunters and trappers warn that dumping the beaver carcass is considered wastage and is illegal under the Wildlife Act.
Fewer people eat beaver meat, Gruben said, but the hides are useful. She has two pelts right now she’s using to line snow pants.
“I think it helps. It helps the hunters and trappers and puts a little dent in the beaver population. Economically, it is pretty hard here, so this is good for the harvesters,” she said.
There is no limit to the number of beaver that can be claimed. The program runs until June 10. The bounty covers the Inuvialuit Settlement Area, covering the northern half of the Mackenzie Delta with the primary communities of Inuvik, Aklavik and Tuktoyaktuk.
The added incentive appears to be working.
With the ice clearing, at least 100 beavers were killed and claimed in Aklavik last week, officials said.
The program is funded by the territory’s department of Environment and Natural Resources.
The beaver has been an important animal species in Canada, particularly through the fur trade. In 1975 the beaver was designation as the official national animal.