A beaver is seen swimming in a pond at Cougar Creek Park on Thursday, a day after another beaver was trapped and killed in the park. (CBC)

Animal rights activists are angry that officials in Surrey, B.C., approved killing a beaver in order to alleviate the threat of flooding to residents near a pond in Cougar Creek Park.

The city obtained a special permit from the provincial government to kill the animal, Carrie Baron, a drainage manager with the city's engineering department, said on Thursday.

City crews demolished beaver dams in Cougar Creek and caught a beaver in a trap set out Wednesday morning, Baron said. The male beaver died in the trap after its skull was crushed.

The move drew criticism from animal rights supporters including Rosalyn Cassels, a former Vancouver Park Board commissioner, who said the city's actions were inhumane and unsustainable.

Surrey officials obtained a special permit from the provincial government to kill a beaver in a pond at Cougar Creek Park. (CBC)

Cassels said the human encroachment on wildlife habitat in Surrey is out of control.

"We have no right to take away what little habitat they have left. This is our national animal. It's an absolute disgrace to see any animal treated this way," she said Thursday.

Alan Starkey, a trapping instructor with the B.C. Trappers Association, said it's hard to believe city crews could have trapped the animal in an ethical way.

"Nobody traps this time of the year … you're going to catch the two parents and the other poor little ones are just going to end up dying," Starkey said on Thursday.

Cassels said city workers told her that the male beaver's mate and kits were not harmed during the process.