BC's current wildlife regulations offer one outcome for conflict beavers: death. When a beaver needs to be removed from a location where its presence is untenable — a railway right-of-way, a utility corridor, an urban drainage system — the law mandates that any transported animal be euthanized at the destination. Relocation, as a management tool, does not legally exist.

This policy gap has significant consequences. It prevents conservation organizations and private landholders from moving conflict beavers into depleted watersheds where their presence would accelerate habitat recovery. It prevents municipalities from treating beavers as a resource rather than a liability. And it leaves wildlife managers with only lethal options when creative ones would serve both the animal and the ecosystem better.

The story of Alder and Willow offers a window into what a different policy framework could enable.

Alder and Willow

Two beavers, now adults, were separately rescued as orphaned kits in Kelowna and Vernon during high-water events in spring 2020. They were delivered to BC Wildlife Park in Kamloops, where staff provided intensive care — bottle feeding, 24/7 monitoring, and a retrofitted outdoor habitat designed to minimize human contact and preserve their capacity for wild release.

Two years on, Alder and Willow are capable adults ready for reintegration into a natural habitat. The challenge is finding and permitting an appropriate site under a regulatory framework that was not designed for this kind of work.

The Proposed Reintroduction

Our team, in partnership with BC Wildlife Park and the Okanagan Collaborative Conservation Program (OCCP), identified Ellison Lake — a former beaver habitat north of Kelowna adjacent to Okanagan Lake — as the primary candidate site.

The site has historical beaver evidence, current absence of beaver populations (due to over-trapping and urbanization pressure), and support from the Okanagan Indian Band, who are invested in restoring the habitat and the ecosystem services beavers provide. Through the Band's Guardian program, members would gain hands-on training in Beaver Dam Analogues, Flow Control Devices, and relocation methodology — building local capacity for ongoing coexistence work.

A secondary site managed directly by the Humane Solutions team has been identified as a contingency.

Why This Matters Beyond Two Beavers

The relocation of Alder and Willow is meaningful in itself. But its significance as a precedent is larger.

BC has no framework for permitted beaver relocation. There are no established protocols for translocation methodology, site assessment, custodianship, or outcome monitoring. Every organization working in this space is, in effect, working around a regulatory gap rather than through a recognized process.

Alder and Willow represent an opportunity to build that case study — with full documentation of the methodology, the site preparation, the reintroduction, and the ecosystem response. Data from this project can directly support a regulatory submission for a beaver relocation framework that would benefit conservation organizations, municipalities, and First Nations across the province.

The Ecological Argument

Beavers are keystone wetland engineers. An estimated 50% of endangered species in North America depend on beaver wetland habitat at some point in their life cycle. Beaver ponds are among the last to freeze in winter and first to thaw in spring — premium habitat for waterfowl and migratory birds. They raise water tables, reduce erosion, filter pollutants, regulate stream temperature, and create natural firebreaks.

We are losing wetlands globally at an accelerating rate. In BC, a drainage landscape shaped by generations of over-trapping has left watersheds without the keystone engineer that would naturally restore them. Beaver relocation — done properly, with appropriate site assessment, custodianship, and monitoring — is one of the most cost-effective ecological restoration tools available.

The policy framework to use it responsibly does not yet exist. We are working to change that.

Partners in This Work

  • Humane Solutions Inc.
  • BC Wildlife Park (Kamloops)
  • Okanagan Collaborative Conservation Program (OCCP)
  • Okanagan Indian Band
  • Society For Ecosystem Restoration in Northern BC (SERN BC)

Organizations interested in collaborating on beaver relocation pilot projects or contributing to the policy development process are encouraged to contact us.