Students paint trees to save beavers

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/10/2010 (5510 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More than 100 Westwood Collegiate students were spotted with paint brushes and cans in west Winnipeg last week.

The students weren’t tagging the area with graffiti; they were painting trees along Sturgeon Creek near Grant’s Old Mill as part of a pilot project.

The Assiniboine Watershed Network teamed up with the Grade 12 biology students on Oct. 7 to coat the base of the trees with a paint that will deter beavers from chewing them.

AWN co-ordinator Amber Wiegand said this program is a first for the city. It was tested at a few city parks this past spring and produced favourable results.

 Westwood students painted hundreds of trees in the riparian area, a transitional zone between the land and a body of water. Wiegand said their efforts were a blessing for the non-profit group.

 “This is fantastic for us. Whenever we can get volunteers out that are caring and passionate we see that we won’t have to worry in the future that people don’t understand why we’re doing this,” she said.

 Students used basic exterior latex paint mixed with sand on the trees. The sand deters the beavers more than the paint does, Wiegand said.

 She added that paint colours were chosen to match the tree as closely as possible, assuring that there wouldn’t be any fluorescent orange tree trunks along the creek.

Wiegand said it takes 10 minutes to paint each tree from the base to approximately two metres so the beaver can’t stand up and gnaw at it.

Other beaver deterrent methods include wrapping trees with stucco wiring.

Wiegand said the mixture is being used in part because of community reaction to the annual trapping and killing of beavers along the creek.

The Westwood students have been working with the AWN every spring and fall for the past five years doing everything from tree planting to creek cleanup.

Westwood biology teacher George Valentim said students were initially unsure of their task but were eager to give it a try.

“This is a more hands on experience and it’s something that we can continue year in and year out,” Valentim said.

“(The students) are going to have to maintain it probably at least two more times this year to see the success rate of the paint.”

Grade 12 student Dallin Pawich, 17, plans to study ecology and agriculture at university and said the Sturgeon Creek project enabled him to get a better grasp on the material he will study.

“For me personally, it’s kind of a struggle to concentrate learning biology in the classroom. But it’s exciting to do it outside of school to learn about the environment and give back,” Pawich said.

Classmate Christopher Kshyk, 17, said he has done some interior house painting before but this was the first time he applied a coat of paint to a tree.

“I’m interested in the standpoint that this is something I’ve never done before, and it’s a different experience that I can say to people, ‘Hey, I painted a tree’,” Kshyk said.

This project is part of the Adopt-A-Creek program that is a co-operative program with the AWN, which provides environmental education in exchange for services like cleaning and painting.

For more information on the Assiniboine Watershed Network, visit www.awnonline.org.

trevor.suffield@canstarnews.com