The city will work with an animal advocacy group to consider ways to more humanely deal with beavers causing problems in local waterways.
Lesley Fox of the Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals made a presentation to council on Monday, expressing the organization’s hope for the end of city-endorsed trapping.
The city does not perform its own trapping, but has in the past hired people to do the work.
Jim Gordon, the city’s general manager of engineering, said the city does everything it can to protect waterways while avoiding killing beavers, and “trapping is only a last resort.”
Fox said that although the province regulates trapping, municipalities can create bylaws limiting the types of traps used, which require provincial approval.
The association previously renewed its calls for reform in Abbotsford last March, after a coyote was found in a leg-hold trap in a wooded area of Beaton Road.
The animal, whose leg had been severely mangled and was infected, was later euthanized.
Fox said her group is offering to provide free assistance to help the city stop using traps, including putting up cage-like barriers around drainage canals and culverts to stop beavers from blocking them.
Council encouraged the association to work with city staff to evaluate their proposals and consider possible implementation.