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Almost three months ago, I wrote a little post musing about the damage to some trees in and about the stream by the side of our little rural road, along the route that I take for my daily walks. It’s a delightful setting, a place where I can imagine Ratty and Mole adventuring and Toad decompensating over the smallest things, while Badger wanders around lugubriously trying to pick up all the pieces, sort everyone out, and carry on as normal. I have no doubt Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s cottage is in the undergrowth somewhere, and I think I’ve seen Jeremy Fisher sitting on the bank catching flies with his tongue.
So I was somewhat alarmed to see my little paradise disturbed as the trees were being systematically felled, one by one. I posited beavers as the culprits and wrote a short post, asking for feedback and opinions as to what was going on. With a singular (and spiritedly argumentative but ultimately unconvincing) exception, you all agreed with me that the damage was being caused by beavers.
Since then, I’ve had a little trail camera set up at what looked like one active condestruction site or another, trying to grab a stealthy photo of the guys at work. No dice. Clearly, these beavers know how to evade the paparazzi. They are the Greta Garbo of beaverdom. All they want is to be left alone. They’ve chewed through the strap holding the camera to the tree trunk. They’ve flung the thing five or six feet in the wrong direction. They’ve unmoored it from whatever was fastening it to the ground, or whatever was propping it up, and carefully placed it face down, times without number.
But, today, for once in my life, I got lucky. Actually, I’m lucky almost every day on these walks. In the past week, I’ve seen innumerable deer, three or four different kinds of ducks, including a couple of little duck families swimming around with their babies, a heron standing on one leg and darting its head under the water to catch whatever it is that heron catch, a flock or two of geese, and a mink crossing the road right in front of me. Oh, and a couple of baby muskrats playing on the stream bank.
Today, though, I thought was rather a dull day, until I turned at the halfway point and headed for home. A minute or two later, et voila! Beaver. Two of them actually. Snapped a photo with my phone, just before they caught sight of me and splashed their way back into the water.
So mystery (not that there was much of one) solved.
Beaver.
Published in Environment
Sneaky little rodents.
Did you say you live in Beaver Falls or Claysville Pa?
Well, closer to Claysville than Beaver Falls. At least, I thought so. Whatever’s going on, I blame global warming.
The damage to trees beavers can do is really astounding. What are their teeth made of? Good heavens.
Hats, I see hats.
Beaver hats? Heaven help us. lol
Like all other rodents, their teeth never stop growing. Even if they have no construction ongoing, they’ll gnaw on trees just to keep their teeth under control.
And Trump!
We have beavers in the swamp in front of our house. They are very destructive creatures, not only because of the trees they destroy, but with the dams they build. We had the first family trapped and relocated many moons ago, but a new bunch moved in years later. Where they came from, who knows . . .
Would Mr. She look stylish in a beaver hat? This might be an opportunity.
Palestine, TX had the foulest tasting water in the US thanks to beavers. The impounded water in their dams promoted algae blooms, which died. The dead algae decayed and “cooked” in the Texas sun, creating a decayed algae tea. The molecules providing the unique rank flavor were too small to be filtered out by conventional water treatment.
According to a cookbook on pickling that my mother-in-law owned, at the time of its publication (in the 1950s) Palestine, TX’s water was cited for its clarity and general excellence. This was, of course, pre-beaver, which apparently made a comeback in the 1980s.
Am I the only one who likes beavers and think they’re awesome? And what they do is awesome.
It wasn’t the beavers who were causing the pollution in the impoundment causing the algal blooms. Probably agricultural runoff from concentrated animal feeding operations, but it might be something else. There are lots of solutions for that, but the beavers were not the cause of the pollution. Even without the impoundment, the pollution would have still been occurring and it would have just continued down stream and would probably cause algal blooms in the bay where the river would empty into the Gulf.
Yes, beavers cut down trees. So what? They don’t clear cut and trees grow back.
I tend to agree with that. The cause of algae blooms is nitrogen. Decaying trees actually suck nitrogen out of the environment in which they decaying.
Probably the two events happened at the same time, and people understandably believed they were related.
Now you’ve got me worried. We had a bear come through last year and knock over some bird feeders and one of the bluebird boxes had claw marks on the roof and the pole was bent over at 90 degrees. Just recently, I think we had another pass that took our some of the GoldFinch feeders. For my birthday, my son gave me one of those trail cameras and I was going to use it to see if I could get the bear (or at least the deer, foxes, groundhogs and wild turkeys around here. I guess I will need to mount it pretty high.
The trees they kill don’t grow back, and the swamp is slowly getting filled in as they add to the dam. Any tree that starts to grow back is subsequently gnawed down, as the beavers are constantly expanding the size of their dam.
So in a way, they are clear-cutting.
She,
Yes, Beavers, one of Nature’s mysteries. In this short film, their habitat and behaviours are explored.
Regards,
Jim
Nitrogen is one possible cause. It depends on the species of algae (actually they are cyanobacteria rather than algae) – some are nitrogen fixers, i.e., they can get all the nitrogen they need from air. Phosphorus may also be the limiting nutrient (and commonly is). It just depends on the circumstance.
And as for decaying vegetation in water there is a problem of formation of trihalomethanes (THMs) after disinfection in drinking water.
Yes, there’s a reason the old saying refers to “busy as a beaver.” They MUST cut down the trees!! In a wilderness area, this is great for the moose, who like to graze in the shallow parts of the ponds. And the constant chewing is required to keep their teeth growth in check. But, they will not stop till they’ve cut down ALL the trees…
Yes. The letter “R” is in “beaver,” and also in “Trump.” The connection is clear.
Perhaps in the winter. It’s 94 outside here at the moment . . .
Yes, they are making a mess of things, that’s for sure.
Oh, you mean the water was intended for pickling? That’s why the clarity was such a big deal. My first reaction in reading this part of your comment was, “Pickled beaver? Ugh.”
The proximate cause of the problem down our way is the coal mine, which has caused subsidence at the end of the road where the stream is, and turned it into a slow-moving, swampy mess. (Consol claims they’ll fix it later this year or early next, and so far, they’ve actually been pretty good about stuff like that). But these beavers have found their way down what’s become a wider, more sluggish waterway than usual, from another place several miles upstream.
At least they beavers have the good sense not to start having lots of regulations about wetlands.
I’m with you. I also think beavers are cool – one of the few animals that actively changes its habitat to create one more suitable for itself. Humans, of course, are at the top of that pile.
I think the beavers are getting a bum rap here – I suspect the FBI and or the Clinton campaign.
There was a funny exchange of letters in the 90s that went viral. According to this guy, who claims to have been Director of Michigan DEQ at the time, the story is legit and the following are the actual letters.
The really interesting thing about the exchange, is if the landowner had complied and removed the dam, he could have gotten in serious trouble.
And the Russians.