While beavers are common in Southern Ontario conservation areas, two recent incidents caused controversy because they are right in urban areas.

Beavers on the University of Waterloo campus has gnawed several trees, posing a danger to those who use the trails. The University then paid a trapper to drown the beavers. Four of them were killed that way. There was a public outcry, from the students, as well as Waterloo residents. This caused the university to revise its policy and start a task force headed by the dean of Environmental Studies. Even that task force is being debated.

The folks in nearby Cambridge then said that beavers are safer in their city as opposed to Waterloo. No sooner than this has been said, that beavers were found to have chewed on trees on a trail next to the Speed River.