UNB Woodlot Watch

Jon Collicot, July 1st, 2008

I read your front-page article June 27 entitled “Beaver kill comes back to haunt university” and was shocked. In the article, University of New Brunswick spokespeople describe how 24 beavers were trapped and killed for the sake of keeping a few woodlot roads free from water.

When questioned about their logic, they state that rendering them into pelts was the most humane way of stopping the problem.

First of all, they never clearly state the hazards. Killing these busy little critters for the sake of students and professors who want to visit the woodlot seems ridiculous, educationally ironic and extremely heavy-handed to me, and it sets a bad example for our community.

I grew up in the country so I have a great admiration for all of God’s creatures, no matter how fierce, ugly or in this case “annoying,” as the university’s attitude seems to portray them.

Instead of attempting to live in harmony with these animals as they build their homes to survive, UNB decides to start a program of contained extermination.

They go on to say that moving the beavers was an extremely dangerous proposition due to the beavers’ natural territorial tendencies. In other words, it is much better to make pelts out of them then to attempt to move them and have them fight with each other.

Perhaps they fear open warfare on Fredericton streets, beavers everywhere smacking each other with their tails and taking down parking meters with their mighty incisors! Better call in the armed forces!

This echoes a trend here in Fredericton. As our supposedly “green” city continues to expand and sprawl into the woods that surround us, we are consistently turning common sense on its ear for the sake of so-called “progress.” Why spend money when we can just kill whatever annoys us? What’s next? Burning blue heron nests?

The beavers have just as much right to live here as we do, and UNB is demonstrating openly how they are less an institution of higher learning and more a symbol of human intolerance towards our natural world.