Officials at a national park in south-western Ontario are on a baby watch.
Point Pelee National Park is on a long wide spit of land extending into Lake Ontario.
Beavers, once plentiful, were trapped virtually to extinction in many areas of the province. Although there have been rare sitings of lone wandering beavers in the park over the years, there hasn’t been a resident beaver there for some100 years,
Park ecologist Tammy Dobbie notes that beaver are making a slow comeback in the province, although there are far fewer wetlands available these days.
Then, last year two beavers built a lodge in the marsh and appeared to take up residency. Officials are hoping these were a mating pair and that some kits will soon appear.
Beavers eat cattails and water lilies during the spring and summer. They eat aspen and cottonwood bark in the winter. However, the beavers did chew down the park’s canoeing entrance sign. They added it to their lodge.
If the pair did in fact mate, babies would be born in late March, or early April. The kits would then emerge from their lodge in early June
Everyone is excited by the possiblity of a young family of beavers in the park. “it’s a pretty big deal”, said Ms Dobbie.
With files from CBC
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