Beavers may be unwelcome in the area, but they’re still beloved by area residents — and so they’re no longer welcome in a Metrolinx-owned pond near Beaconsfield Station in Montreal.
Coon Rapids, Minn., native Mike Courtright, who lives near the pond, says the beavers have returned home to Canada in search of water since Metrolinx removed several of them in May. (They were moved there in April.) Courtright has been trying to stay out of the conflict by trying to live as normally as possible, but while he was out driving and has his window open, a beaver wandered up to him with a great white shark on its forehead.
“That’s when I decided not to be a tourist,” Courtright told NPR.
“Don’t jump. Don’t jump!” the beaver yelled, Courtright said. “Don’t do it. Just don’t do it.”
Metrolinx has asked Courtright not to disturb the beavers, but if he does, the agency says it will consider “appropriate measures” to ensure the animals can survive.
The Metrolinx request has not gone over well in this tony Montreal neighborhood, where Courtright lives with his wife,
The beavers attracted international attention in May when they built a dam on an existing water source in the pond. Metrolinx has repeatedly said it wants to minimize the beavers’ impact on the public – beavers can gnaw their way through trees during the winter and spring, rut their long tails and cause erosion.
So the agency has been slowly draining the pond, reported CBC News.
“We knew something had to be done, so we did,” Metrolinx spokeswoman Marie Poutier told CBC.
Courtright is, unsurprisingly, not a fan of the beavers draining his pond. “It’s kind of a public space, and they’re cleaning the bed, and they’re creating something where they came from,” he told National Public Radio.
Apparently, the funereal sound of Metrolinx’s plan has even led the creatures to return to their dam.