The beaver was found emaciated, wandering the pathways along the Bow River near downtown’s East Village.
A young beaver has been released back into its natural habitat after 133 days of care and rehabilitation.
The Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society found the beaver on March 11, wandering pathways along the Bow River near downtown’s East Village.
It is believed the beaver is about two-years-old and was dispersed from its family when members of the public picked it up according to Melanie Whalen, wildlife care and services director at Calgary Wildlife.
“She was pretty emaciated and kind of weak when she came into us,” said Whalen. “We treated her for her emaciation and to get her weight back up.”
On top of being thin and relatively weak, the beaver had a small minor wound that Calgary Wildlife treated at their facility in northwest Calgary.
Beavers are fully grown at the age of two and live up to five years in the wild.
It was released on Monday in Beaver Mines, Alberta an “ideal location” for reintegration into the wild, the society said.
The ranching community near Pincher Creek has been dealing with drought for several years and hopes to reestablish beaver populations to help “recharge” water tables, Whalen said.
“Releasing this beaver back into the wild is not just a win for this individual animal, but a triumph for our local ecosystems,” said Whalen.
She called beavers a “keystone species” in our environment; being nature’s engineers, their dam-building talents create wetlands that support countless other species, helping to purify water and mitigate flood risks.
“They’re creating habitat for birds, for moose, for bats, you name it — there’s so many species; and without them (beavers), there would be consequences,” Whalen said.
Increase in animals coming due to development
At the confluence of the Bow and Elbow rivers, Calgary itself of course has natural habitats through the river valley and surrounding prairies.
“It’s important to be able to have a facility like ours, when you do have animals that are getting injured or displaced, essentially due to human activity, habitat fragmentation, all of this stuff,” she said.
They get calls from all across Calgary, but Whalen said what species the calls are for varies depending where in the city the call comes from.
“In the core of the city, the majority of calls we might be getting are typical urban species like magpies, songbirds, hares, skunks, that kind of stuff,”
As they spread out throughout the city they get more calls about deer or moose — but those can happen downtown too.
“Obviously, with development — which is bound to happen — you have urban expansion, definitely we start to see an increase with animals coming in just due to development,” said Whalen.
Additionally, she said more people coming to the city spreading into previously untouched areas creates a further increase.
Whalen said that development is inevitable and will continue to happen.
“We can’t say well, ‘stop developing’, but certainly their needs to be more thought put into the total ecosystem of where we’re putting developments and how animals are moving through there,” she said.
Even simple things like putting window treatments on taller buildings near wetlands to avoid birds flying into them can help.
“There’s going to be that kind of human wildlife interface where people are going to be interacting,” she said.