Beaver spotted walking alongside curb near Saanich

A family driving down Interurban Road ran into an unusual sight for a Vancouver Island neighbourhood – a beaver.

The family stopped for a second and recorded the beaver walking alongside a curb on Interurban road, and slowly moving into the driveway of another household.

Seeing wildlife on Vancouver Island is nothing out of the ordinary, but seeing a beaver up close is.

“I’ve never heard of that before so that’s not something that I’m aware of but I guess it speaks to the fact that as we urbanize the environment, we’re gonna see more sort of animal-city interaction,” said Executive Director of Swan Lake Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary Society, Cara Gibson.

Gibson says that beavers are usually very shy animals that only come out when no one is around. If they do appear, it’s usually around forested areas and wet lands in Saanich.

“I’ve never seen them, my understanding is that they do it dawn and dusk so you know when people aren’t typically around here, and you could imagine lumberjacks probably don’t want to work with an audience either,” said Gibson.

The family that saw the beaver says construction at a nearby creek where they usually hang out, might’ve been the reason why they lucked out and saw one this time around.

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