Dredging ends, beavers return

I haven’t seen the furry critters myself, but I have it upon reliable eye-witness authority that the beavers are now back frolicking in the waters off the northern coast of Madison Park. This, in spite of the two weeks of dredging in the area recently undertaken by Broadmoor’s contractor. The dredging company pulled out last week, meaning (I guess) that water from the Lake is now free to gush unhindered into the irrigation pipes of the golf course.
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I don’t get up early enough, unfortunately, to get a shot of swimming beavers (who, I am told, are most likely to be seen after sunrise); but Canterbury resident Gene Brandzel provided this fuzzy shot last week to prove his point either that the Loch Ness monster lives or that the beavers are really back in Canterbury (Gene admits that the lighting was bad). He reports that there were four adult beavers on show at 5:30 that particular morning, which just happened to be a couple of days before the dredging equipment was evacuated. “Some of the beavers slapped their tails right next to the dredge to say goodbye,” Brandzel said. “It was quite touching.”

Broadmoor isn’t the only community, by the way, to benefit from the dredging effort. As a condition of one of the permits that Broadmoor needed to obtain for the project, the Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife required that the pier at the end of 37th Avenue E., near the dredging site, be resurfaced. The old surface of the pier (aka “dock”) was wooden, allowing little light to penetrate into waters underneath. The new pier has slots that allow the light to shine through. This, in theory, should be good for the aquatic and plant life of the bay.

It's nice to know that the fears of many of us that the beavers might be disturbed as a result of the dredging have apparently proved overblown. The waters look serene, the beaver lodge remains intact, and we presumably can soon look forward to seeing the results of another successful breading season. If anyone gets a good shot of the new brood, please share with us!

[Middle photo: the wooden housing for the Broadmoor irrigation system intake pipe, around which the dredging occurred.]