Sympathy for the beaver

"All them birds and predators just take from the land, but the beaver always gives a dam."
--The Arrogant Worms

There's a buffer zone between the plant where I work and the nearest neighbourhood. The buffer zone is basically a park, but it's owned by the owners of the nearby plants. One day last week during my lunch break, I went for a walk with a co-worker, and we decided to walk down a trail that goes along a creek. As we got closer to the end with the beaver dam, we saw lots of freshly-cut trees lying on the ground, with lots of teeth marks where they were cut. The beavers had been busy.

When we got to the dam, we saw another co-worker. He showed us two beaver traps that had been set on the dam. (I'm not sure if they were set by the city government or by the company that owns the land.) He said a couple of beavers had been caught and killed earlier that week.

I couldn't help but be disappointed. They're killing our national animal! And then the less sympathetic side of me kicks in and reminds me that beavers are a pest when they're in a city. The co-worker who showed me the traps pointed out how few tall trees there are near that part of the creek, and he said it's because of years of beaver activity.

Maybe it's necessary to keep the beavers out of the city to keep the park in better shape, but I wish it wasn't necessary. Are these trees any more important than the ones they cut down to build the plants? Besides, I still think the area around the creek is beautiful even if all the trees are short. But maybe it would get a lot worse without any animal control around there, and maybe it's harder for predators to get into the city so beavers can naturally do more damage there.