Beavers Nelson and Tina from the Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society are helping shape the future of relocation for the species.
The pair first came to the rehabilitation centre in the summer of 2024.
“Tina was still at nursing age; they were both far too young to be wandering alone outside of their respective lodges,” reads the release by Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society.
“These kits were not conflict beavers, but orphaned and transferred to the Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society in Summerland, remarkably within a few days of each other.”
The team helped rehabilitate these beavers for two years. The pair had bonded socially and were ready to be released into the wild.
“The challenge was finding a suitable wetland habitat where we were legally allowed to release them under a regulatory framework that was not designed for this kind of work,” stated the society.
Beavers, being territorial, need enough time in the summer months to establish their lodge, according to the rehabilitation society.
“This includes a water-entry to avoid predation, deep water pools and underwater travel-channels to establish themselves, build up a food cache for the winter, and to manage their wetland complex effectively,” the wildlife rehabilitation society stated.
Under current government policy, wildlife relocated more than 10 kilometres from its place of origin must be handled by biologists.
Rehabilitated wildlife is typically returned to where it was found rather than translocated.
“The government has their own agendas of how to manage wildlife on a population level and not on an individual level, which is what we do, we care for animals on an individual level,” said Eva Hartmann, founder of the Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society.
Hartmann explained that managing beavers at a population level means the government usually manages a species of wildlife together, not individual animals like at the rehabilitation centre.
“Beavers are not managed on a population level in our province.
“Therefore, if anybody would like to relocate a beaver, the framework doesn’t exist on even a smaller level, what we do, because it doesn’t exist on a larger level.”
For the beavers Nelson and Tina, they could not have gone back to their place of origin.
“They were found separately wandering around outside the wetland,” Hartmann said.
“They were each washed down a creek or river and then must have somehow gotten out.”
So they applied for a translocation permit and have been working towards scouting appropriate locations for them since.
The society has been working very closely with local First Nations governments, as well as the Westbank First Nation (WFN) and the Sylix Nation.
Ntityix Resources LP is a forest management company owned by WFN that received guidance from the WFN elders “about the importance of beavers on the land and the benefits they can provide for watershed health.”
“At Ntityix Resources, we are proud to have played a role in relocating these beavers to a site where beavers once lived but are no longer present,” said a statement from the company.
“Supporting the return of beavers to this area reflects our commitment to finding meaningful ways to steward the land we manage.
The rehabilitation society said it has received consistent support from First Nations, which share its view that a relocation framework is needed.
“We acknowledge the Indigenous communities that we were working with, and they have been nothing but wonderful in supporting us, to help us find a release site, to check the release site in person, to come to the actual release and participate in the release, as well as, being interested in what we will find out after the beavers are in the wild again,” said Hartmann.
Together with First Nations, registered provincial biologists and the BC Wildlife Federation’s Wetland Restoration Project, they began their research.
“We compiled a wetland assessment document describing release site suitability from observations made over several recent seasons at an Okanagan site. This included a Beaver Restoration Assessment tool (or BRAT model) and field data scorecards,” Hartmann said.
“The latter, which is available from US-based beaver relocators in Utah and Washington with decades of experience in this field. We then applied for a wildlife translocation permit, which included a post-release monitoring plan with the Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship (WLRS). The proposed site had historical beaver evidence, yet a current absence of resident beaver populations.”
Upon receiving the translocation permit, the society is required to send the federal government yearly updates on the beavers.
In B.C., very few groups had the knowledge of translocating beavers due to the associated costs and complexities. “We sought to address these complexities by ensuring appropriate holding and transporting beavers as a family unit, providing comprehensive veterinary disease screening during captivity, executing long-term post-release monitoring that looks at survival and movement patterns of relocated pairs and families, as well as predation mitigation by providing temporary first shelter options until beavers have built their own lodge adjacent to deep water pools,” Hartmann said.
It has been a week and a half since the beavers were released.
Hartmann explained how the data collected from this project with Nelson and Tina can help build a framework that would benefit conservation organizations, municipalities and Indigenous communities across B.C.
Hartmann added that they want to set a precedent for beaver relocation.
The beavers are tagged with a Passive Integrated Transponder, while other tag readers are installed around the wetland.
They also have remote cameras set up next to the readers. “After a week of having left them at the release site, we went back for the first time and read all the data from the readers, and we also had an in-person sighting of them again. They were very far away, but we could see them when we went back to read out the data. So we know that they are still there.”