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By Bob Armstrong
The Winnipeg Free Press
Wednesday, July 9, 2003
BEAVERS may be one of Canada's favourite
national symbols, but that doesn't stop them from being complete
pests.
A four-person team from the federal youth
program Katimavik, working with the environmental group Save Our
Seine, started work last week to protect trees along the Seine
River from a healthy and hungry beaver population.
On the advice of Constance Menzies, environmental
co-ordinator for Palliser Furniture and former co-ordinator of
riparian areas in the office of the city naturalist, the crew
members are putting wire mesh on some of the large trees that
are crucial to the forest canopy, maintaining riverbank stability
and providing habitat.
The Katimavik crew's work is important to
efforts to keep the urban forest alive, says Dave Danyluk, co-ordinator
of SOS. "We'd never catch up to losing
a 60- or 80-year-old tree every few days," says Danyluk, noting
that the organization has been planting young trees that are at
most three or four years old. It's also important to Menzies,
who lived near the river in her school days and still enjoys exploring
it by canoe."I've always felt affection
for the river," she says. Menzies, who did her masters thesis
on beaver control in Riding Mountain National Park, has been studying
beaver populations along the Seine for several years. Each year
she paddles the river and counts every lodge and food cache to
arrive at a population estimate. About 80 of the voracious buck-toothed
rodents live between the Perimeter Highway and the Red River.
Their deforesting effects tend to be concentrated because of heavy
development along some stretches of the river. Because
their natural predators, wolves, are scarce, beaver numbers are
increasing in Manitoba, says Menzies. Within Winnipeg, dry years
and control measures such as trapping have brought the population
down on the Red and Assiniboine rivers in recent years, but the
numbers haven't come down on the Seine.
Menzies worked with the crew from Katimavik
in late June, showing them how to protect trees and which trees
are most vulnerable to beaver damage. For the young workers with
Katimavik, braving sunburn and mosquitoes along the river is a
way to get hands-on experience working on an environmental project.
The federally funded program brings together teams of Canadians
17 to 21 years old and sends them to locations across Canada to
work on environmental, cultural, leadership, and healthy living
projects. For many participants, says project leader Joel Jacques,
a nine-month term with Katimavik is a chance to explore careers,
gain volunteer experience and see Canada. "If some of them want
to eventually go into environmental studies, they've already got
field experience," says Jacques. The four tree banders -- Nathan
Rehorick of New Brunswick, Erin Hubbard of Saskatchewan, Jessica
Wright of Ontario and Laura Turmel of Quebec -- are part of an
11 person team living in a house on Provencher Boulevard for 10
weeks. The participants live together, do volunteer projects for
community groups all over Winnipeg, and explore the city and province
during their stay here. Property owners who want advice on protecting
their trees from beavers can call SOS at 470-9247.
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