Our 2025 beaver coexistence program officially wrapped up last November and we’ve gotten the chance to look at all the data submitted through the season. This program involves independent volunteers monitoring a section of the park regularly to track beaver activity features like dams, lodges, drag trails, tree chewing, and food caches. Monitoring and logging data helps us understand what Fish Creek Provincial Park beavers are up to and informs our tree wrapping activities or infrastructure-protecting projects when necessary.
What kinds of things were nature’s engineers up to in 2025 in the park? Some neat things we found include two new large dams between bridges five and six (by the Raven Rocks between Votier’s Flats and Bebo Grove) and a new lodge in the bank in that same area. We’ve also observed lots of felled trees and chewed trees around the Votier’s Flats day use area – meaning there’s been a lot of purposeful activity in building dams and establishing food caches!
Beavers in the west end of the park kept us busy in the later part of the summer with their extremely efficient dam building in stormwater draining channels. Combined with the massive amounts of rain seen in July, these dams led to significant pathway flooding in one area around Bebo Grove. Thanks to some dedicated volunteers and a lot of effort over multiple dam management sessions, we were able to break the dams down. It was no easy feat though! One day alone we dealt with 13 or 14 dams—it seemed like they were popping back up as fast as we could clear them sometimes! We also wrapped trees in the area to encourage the beavers to move to a different spot and are looking into other options to prevent pathway flooding in 2026.
This year, we also had the chance to collaborate with the city on stormwater pond management where resident beavers had the potential to be impacted. This involved draining and dredging accumulated silt out of two storm ponds with beaver lodges in them. The work began with slowly draining the storm ponds, reducing the water level with the goal of encouraging any current residents to relocate. In this case, it turns out that the lodges were unoccupied, but it was a positive step for protecting wildlife who make their homes in and around city infrastructure like storm ponds.
Do you have a young scientist who’s interested in beavers? We have a whole day dedicated to them at our new Fish Creek Day Camp! Visit our website at www.friendsoffishcreek.org or follow us on Instagram or Facebook at fishcreekpp to learn more about the summer day camp and all our exciting programs.
Friends staff Ross and volunteers breaking down storm channel dams in Bebo Grove, 2025
Beaver drag trail in the park
Before (above) and after (below) photos of the beaver dam between bridges 5 and 6
Map showing Bridge 5 and 6 by Raven Rocks, Fish Creek
