Beaver's

[Terrier]

Beavers will only eat pine if there's nothing else to eat... The timber companies should know that and leave some willows, etc around the streams... Just like adding a sacrificial planting in your garden to keep the bugs off the good stuff.

 

[TNTraveler]

I watched a video of some researchers who placed an iPod in a captive beaver enclosure with the sound of running water playing on it. In 5 minutes the confused beavers had buried the iPod in mud and sticks till they couldn’t hear running water anymore.

Saw something similar they did in a pond with an old cassette player(was an old video) beaver did the same thing, buried it

 

[2 shots]

i think they use the pine pitch to glue their dams together

 

[Newaygo77]

I’ve lived in the same rural area in south central Michigan all my life (I’m 65). Only in the last three years have beavers been present. Their numbers are increasing year to year, to the point where it’s no longer even noteworthy to see one. Same for river otters; until recently, they were extinct in this area, but now they’re fairly common.

if you live in one spot long enough, you witness a lot of comings and goings in the natural world. When I was a kid of about five I remember my farmer father stopping his hay baling to telephone his neighbors because there was a deer in our hayfield. Some of them dropped what they were doing and drove with their kids just to see it. Now they’re everywhere.

Ditto for coyotes, sandhill cranes, bald eagles, pileated woodpeckers, and turkeys; unheard of in my boyhood, but now seen on a daily basis. On the other hand, bobwhite quail and pheasants have disappeared from the area.

 

[ADK Bigfoot]

I have hunted the Adirondacks for nearly fifty years, and never tire of finding beaver dams/hut/chewing in the woods. I now have a camp on a small pond with a fast-flowing outlet. Annually, we have to go down the outlet and break up new dams so the water doesn't back up so far that the pond floods! We trap first, and then break up the dams. We have taken some HUGE beaver out of that stream.

ADK Bigfoot

 

[30338]

Got a little place in KS. Pretty bad drought last few years and the river was about dry last summer. Had some beavers move in last fall and they managed a few dams on my place. Not sure what is happening below my place but have some very nice water backed up now. Sort of nice to see them there. Gladly sacrifice a few trees for it.

 

[Tom A Hawk]

I have beavers on the property and they make a hell of a mess with downed trees. They are amazing engineers however and the size of some of the trees they go after is incredible.

These are poplar.

 

[JEBMs]

My western property line is the Big s Sunflower River. The Ol’ boy in the picture made his home burrowed into my bank. I believe he was a bachelor as I never saw any more. When I would mow across the top of his house he would shoot out the underwater opening leaving a bubble trail reminiscent of the torpedo trails in the WW2 submarine movies. There were other beavers in the river mostly downstream but apparently he became enamored with a little girl beaver in the lake across the racetrack that is the road in front of my house. We would see him going back and forth between the two bodies of water till one day I found him made into an organic speed bump in the middle of the road. I figured he was returning from his visit because he had a smile on his face . Since then his den has collapsed leaving a swale that wants to pitch my mower and I into the river.
In around 1974-5 MDWFP introduced alligators into drainage areas around here to get rid of the beavers. I ask one of the officers about danger to bank fishermen and his response was “alligators can’t live on “excrement” and tennis shoes “. When this failed they brought in a government hunter. Our sons were the same age and we got to be friends. H

e told me that he knew he would never be able to get a handle on the population but he would try till they sent him somewhere else to do something else equally as silly.

 

[Jaeger]

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Let me start by clearly saying, I am Not against trapping.
In the case of thise pond and damn however, I hope no one ever traps these beaver. They have done me a huge favor, and I think overall have had a positive benefit to this area.
The water to the pond side of the damn in the second picture covers what used to be a state forest road. It's about 1.3 miles up the mountain from the gate at the bottom, there is another .5 mile past it. This damn has limited access to that last half mile or so. The change has been incredible. More animals, less litter. There are still scum bags who creep in from the private land past the end of the road and shoot bottles and trash in the road, but the disturbances is greatly reduced.
It is also now one of the most beautiful spots on the mountain. Both because the worst of my elevation gain is behind me, and because it is just plain pretty.
Is crossing the damn a little dicey? Does it add time at oh-dark-hundred getting to my stand? Yes! But, it is well worth it.
Between that damn and a newer one below it, and the one a little over a mile above and beyond it,
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With a great rocky stream with little waterfalls connecting them,,,, those hard working, furry little engineers have made this a much better place to hunt, scout, and hike.

If only we could get some more two legged members of our society to work as hard. (And automotive design engineers to work as smart as these engineers)

These are very nice pictures and a really good illustration of the work and effects beaver do!

 

[Jaeger]

I was deer hunting on state land a number of years ago and came upon this very large felled tree at the edge of a field next to a low, flooded area. It took me a few seconds to figure out that a beaver had done it because of its size. I figure the beaver must have been 6 feet long and weighed maybe.....oh.......300 pounds or so.....

 

[GREENSWLDE]

One of the concerns with introducing BEAVERS back into the UK is the DAM barriers to Migratory Salmon, SeaTrout & Shad on the up river trip to the spawning redds. Our Salmon stocks are falling so rapidly, any more interuptions Could be the beginning of the END. OLD (FISHING) DOG..

 

[Patocazador]

IMO, there are enough beavers around to negate any need to transplant them. Just like wild hog introductions in areas that don't have any ... it's not long before you wish you never saw one.