‘Beavers are just being beavers’: friction grows between Canadians and animals

Beavers cause internet outages, steal posts and even put 30 sq ft of a town underwater - but experts say the animals have a profound effect on ecosystems

At first, the theft of wooden fence posts seemed like a crime of opportunity - amid soaring lumber costs, stacks of wood have gone missing from construction sites across North America.

But officers in the Canadian prairie community of Porcupine Plain, Saskatchewan, soon identified the culprit: local beavers had stolen the posts to build their dam.