Beaver population plunges at Riding Mountain

Officials at Riding Mountain National Park recently counted the park's beavers and they were surprised to find a large drop in the population.

From the air, officials counted the number of active beaver lodges with a visible food cache. They determined about 10,000 beavers swim and chew their way through the park these days about half as many as there were a decade ago.

Park spokesman Ken Kingdon says the results were a surprise, but it may be for the best because there have been too many of the rodents for the park to support in the past.

"They just ate themselves out of house and home, we believe. We just think that they saturated the park, ate as much as they could and reproduced like crazy," says Kingdon. "What's happened now is we believe they've just levelled out and hopefully will be at a level that the environment can sustain."

There are no signs of disease in the park's beavers, but park officials say they may be falling prey to wolves more than they once were; the wolf population in the park has recently rebounded.

Kingdon says another survey will be done this fall to make sure the beaver population does not continue to decline.

Links related to this story:

HINTERLAND WHO'S WHO: More on the beaver