Saving Beaver Lake in Stanley Park

Over the last ten years or so, Beaver Lake in Stanley Park has been slowly disappearing. While it is home to plenty of wildlife, from ducks to an actual beaver who has been chipping down trees over the years, it’s becoming boggy and overgrown. Skunk cabbage and lily pads cover mud patches which, during the summer months, dry up and soak up what little water still flows through from the creek.

I heard on Vancouver is Awesome‘s 100.5 The Peak segment this weekend that a campaign is underway to save Beaver Lake that would see an investment of $100,000 for dredging and restoration by the Vancouver Park Board. Without these efforts, the Stanley Park Ecology Society says the lake could dry up within the next decade or two.

Beaver Lake was a popular recreational spot 100 years ago and was dredged in 1929 to remove mud. The introduction of water lilies in 1937 and the construction of the Stanley Park Causeway, which cut off a water supply, began Beaver Lake’s slow decline. The onetime 6.7-hectare lake is now smaller than four hectares and no more than 1.2 metres deep at any point. The $100,000 is to pay a consultant to develop a strategy for Beaver Lake’s survival, which will likely involve more dredging. [Vancouver Sun]

The Vancouver Park Board will now look at proposals from consultants about how to go about doing the work on Beaver Lake.

Lost Lagoon (named by E. Pauline Johnson) will also soon be in trouble. It never used to be land-locked and is slowly filling up with sediment and overgrowing with invasive species. Find out more about the Stanley Park Ecology Society at the Nature House at Lost Lagoon including their “Ivy Busters” volunteer programs in the summer.

Follow ParkBoard or StanleyPKEcoSoc on Twitter for updates.