What's up with that?

Q Walking around Lincoln Park’s North Pond, I saw posters reading, IN MEMORY OF THE NORTH POND BEAVER / SHE WAS KILLED APRIL 9, 2009 / MURDERED BY THE PARK DISTRICT. What gives?

A Three of “nature’s engineers” appeared last summer via Lake Michigan or the Chicago River, says Chicago Park District’s Becky Schillo. After these crafty beavers gnawed through dozens of trees and dammed the pond’s overflow outlets, the Park District contracted On Target Wildlife Control to trap and release them into forest preserves, at about $4,000 per animal, she says. Schillo says residents rejected tree guards because of aesthetics, plus humans and dogs were harassing the beavers. On Target captured two of the critters but someone sprang the third, she says. Recently, a trapper spotted the holdout scurrying about with a piece of metal cable that was part of the trap wrapped noose-like around its neck; last month, the deceased beast was found floating in North Pond, says Schillo, speculating the cable may have snagged on something, drowning the beaver. “Someone with the best intentions may have caused the beaver’s demise,” she says, adding neighborhood animal activists may have hung the posters. “We’re not making a big deal out of it,” says Schillo. “The beaver’s already dead.”

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