Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Month: September 2012


It started at Lake Anna in early summer where two child swimmers were attacked by a beaver and sustained lacerations. The beaver was killed and examined and tested positive for rabies, so the girls started treatment. Last month there was a similar report on the Delaware River in New York south of Philadelphia. A boyscout leader was attacked while swimming and the boyscouts saved his life by stoning the beaver to death with rocks. It also tested positive for rabies.

And yesterday an 83 year old woman swimming in Lake Barcroft was attacked. She was rescued by some local fishermen who beat the animal to death with a paddle – and because your question will be the same as mine – yes it was a beaver. Jon & I saw the orange teeth in the severed parts shown accidentally on the news last night.  While it is not uncommon to hear stories about beavers being aggressive to dogs in summer when they are protecting their young, this is obviously different.  It is extrememly rare for beavers to be a vector for rabies.

The attack, which occurred about 6 p.m. Tuesday, is the second in Virginia since mid-July, when two sisters swimming in Lake Anna in Spotsylvania County were bitten by a 65-pound beaver. That animal was reportedly shot with a BB gun before being transferred to a lab in Richmond, where it was found to be rabid.

How do beavers contract rabies?  Beavers are extremely social, so if one member of a colony has it they probably all do. But how do they contract it in the first place? The old name for rabies is hydrophobia – or fear of water, which is one of the last stages of the disease. I guess if infected animals avoid water, they are less likely to meet beavers, and I suppose that’s why its been so unhead of before now. But obviously it does happen, and beavers do disperse over land and water and can go long distances. And this isn’t really that long, especially if the first beaver to catch the disease from a dog or raccoon in Lake Anna (in the middle) bit his two siblings, one of whom went north to the delaware river and one of whom went south to Lake Barcroft.




The typical way to test for rabies is  to slice up the brain of the animal in question, so we obviously don’t do that with humans. In fact we don’t ‘test’ for rabies in humans but just start treating with a series of shots if exposure is reasonably expected.  Because the shots tend to be complicated and painful, I assume they are careful about the results.

Last year we had a report in June of a Rabid Beaver attacking three in a Philadelphia Creek which I wrote about here. Obviously within the same general area. So I would imagine the cases are related. I am not at all happy at the idea that this is one more reason to kill beavers, but I suppose, the best possible outcome would be for people to regard beavers with more awareness, and think if  something seems unusual to stay away from it, just like you would with a skunk in the daytime, or a skittish dog.

Despite the spate of attacks, the head of a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people learn about beavers said beaver attacks are extremely rare. Sharon Brown, biologist and director of Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife, has raised and aided beavers for more than 20 years. She said Wednesday that beavers are peaceful vegetarians who coexist with hordes of other animals living in their habitat and almost never attack humans.

Likewise in an effort to show how rare this occurence is, Mary O’brien of the Grand Canyon Trust forwards this
During 2010, 48 states and Puerto Rico reported 6,154 rabid animals and 2 human rabies cases to the CDC, representing an 8% decrease from the 6,690 rabid animals and 4 human cases reported in 2009. Hawaii and Mississippi did not report any laboratory-confirmed rabid animals during 2010. Approximately 92% of reported rabid animals were wildlife. Relative contributions by the major animal groups were as follows: 2,246 raccoons (36.5%), ,448 skunks (23.5%), 1,430 bats (23.2%), 429 foxes (6.9%), 303 cats (4.9%), 71 cattle (1.1%), and 69 dogs (1.1%). Compared with 2009, number of reported rabid animals decreased across all animal types with the exception of a 1% increase in the number of reported rabid cats.

Is there a moral to this story? I don’t know. I guess don’t let your dog swim with wildlife, but any dog whose behavior is going to be controlled probably doesn’t have rabies anyway. Keep a respectful distance from wildlife? I’m not happy with people using beavers for the new jaws movie, but it’s a fact that beavers are wild animals and all wild animals can be unpredictable at times, and even rabid humans aren’t good to be around, so pay attention!


“Sinister Minister”

Ottawa has moved into the lurking stage of beaver management, and defenders of the Paul Lindsay Park Beavers are on the lookout for dastardly deeds. You will remember two adult beavers thoughtlessly moved into a storm water pond and decided to start a family. A panicked city ripped out the lodge that protected the family and the mother and kits have been exposed for several months. The father disappeared, possibly slain or looking for potential habitat in drought-stricken Ottawa and then hit by a car. A potential safe place at a nature reserve was proposed for relocation but this was denied by the local authorities as being ‘out of their jurisdiction’. Apparently there has been a official-looking white- haired stranger at the pond, and Anita has been told they are planning a imminent and clandestine relocation.

Stittsville beaver defenders brace for new fight

OTTAWA — The city is trying for a second year in a row to evict beavers from a Stittsville stormwater pond in a move that would send them to almost certain death, the rodents’ defenders say.

Life has not been good for the furry refugees in the Paul Lindsay Park pond. The city only backed off a plan to trap them last fall after their human defenders warned that “conibear” traps meant to kill the beavers relatively humanely might end up drowning them instead, or could inadvertently catch family pets. Officials were supposed to come up with a broader wildlife strategy before moving in on the beavers again, but that’s still in development.

Now beaver defenders are on the watch and trying to keep an eye on the pond in case there’s a sneak attack. They are hoping to make tshirts to identify themselves and approached us for images. We of course directed them to some fine options and will give them anything they need!

The concern for the beavers’ future is sparked by residents who’ve seen a stranger poking around the pond and asking about the beavers, according to a news release from several wildlife organizations like DuBreuil’s. Anita Utas, a vocal advocate for the beavers, said she’s heard from Christine Hartig of the city’s bylaw department (best known for her years caring for the city’s flock of Royal Swans) that the plan is to move the beavers to somewhere else “local.” There’s a sanctuary west of Algonquin Park that could probably take them safely, DuBreuil said, but that’s likely not what the city has in mind.

I remember what it was like to watch the dams anxiously for city interference and I have nothing but respect for the Ottawa defenders. Lets hope all this sunlight makes the city uncomfortable enough to do the right thing, and bring in someone who knows what they’re doing and knows what it means to move beavers without a lodge a month before winter into a strange location.  In the mean time, good luck with your vigil! And keep us posted on the tshirt efforts!

Sharon Brown of Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife send this photo of husband Owen at Lily’s pond from their recent visit to Ottawa.



From the “dead spot” to grand central station, it feels like I can’t keep up with the beaver news these past few days.Let’s start with this fantastic headline I saw Sunday:

The nuisance conflict: Can animals and humans peacefully coexist?

No trapping was necessary for the beavers in Adamant, either, after Cory Cheever, the Fish and Wildlife technician, got to work on their dam. Cheever, the beaver specialist, is in his fourth year of an assignment that runs from April to November and takes him all over the state. He installs up to 35 treatments a year, of two kinds: for road culverts and for beaver dams.  “They like culverts,” he said, “because the road is their dam.” All they have to do is plug up the aperture, and the pond that’s a key part of their habitat will start to grow.  The culvert treatment, on the upstream side, is to install a fence that prevents the beavers from getting in to fill the hole. Simple enough.

How exciting to see this work done at the state level! Mind you this is in Vermont (the home of Skip Lisle who invented the beaver deceiver), so they have a better shot than most at knowing better. I wrote both Skip and Mike excitedly to see if they knew Corey, but neither of them did.  That and the fact that they refer to the install as a ‘baffle’ makes me a little cautious. If Cheever wants to install flow devices that work he should talk to the experts and keep talking. But still, I’m just squinting and trying to imagine fish and game paying for flow devices! Nope, can’t do it.

“The reason we do this,” Cheever said of the treatments, “is we want to maintain these habitats where possible.”  That’s partly because beaver ponds help sustain dozens of other species.

Very well said! Of course you realize that having a name like Cheever and installing pipes for beaver is just asking for a limerick to be written for you? I’ll try to resist just to praise the excellent decision by Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department to spend a little money solving beaver problems without trapping by protecting habitat for the other fish and wildlife who depend on their dams. Go read the entire article which is all about humane exclusion. Now all I have to do is introduce  Corey to a few friends…

Vermont Fish and Wildlife’s, Cheever
Installs flow devices for beaver
Their ponds grant the wishes
Of game, fowl and fishes
And now Adamant’s a believer!

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This was a fun article that rang a nice civic memory bell in my head

South Portal display features beaver

Vince Belleci has answered thousands of questions about beavers and other critters over his 60-plus years as a trapper and wildlife expert. But the question he was asked by a youngster on Wednesday left him temporarily flabbergasted.

“Can they swim without a life preserver?” asked one of the 30 children from the Klamath County’s YMCA preschool program during a presentation at the South Portal Building, where Belleci introduced a display on beavers.

“That was a good question,” he said afterward.

Information about beavers is featured in a display at the South Portal Building at 205 Riverside Drive. Along with rotating displays that the building houses of the Klamath Watershed Partnership, Discover Klamath and the Klamath County Chamber of Commerce.

If the name Belleci sounds familiar to Martinez residents, it should. The Belleci name is one of the old Italian families forever in Martinez. I was very surprised to meet Vince at the beaver conference in Oregon 2011. He introduced himself as a former local with family in town after I presented on the Martinez Beavers. He was there to learn about installing flow devices and live trapping to broaden his skill set. He had heard all about the famous beavers from his family in town and knew all about the story. He was excited by my presentation and to see them first hand.  Small, small, small beaver world.

Ginny Monroe, the partnership’s outreach coordinator, said it is hoped school groups of all ages will visit the beaver display, which will remain at the building until November. She and Belleci are part of a Beaver Management Team that was formed three years ago to oversee a 10-year program to manage Klamath Basin beavers. Although Belleci has no firm numbers on the region’s beaver population, he estimates there are about 1,000. One of the team’s goals is to humanely trap and tag problem beavers — those damaging agricultural lands — and relocate them to areas where their dam-building doesn’t cause problems.

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More local news:

Martinez beaver supporter, faithful reader of this website and for years a maintainer of his own, fierce libertarian and resident spelling-nit-picker who oddly once nominated me for Contra Costa woman of the year, has died. I first met George when I accidentally putting a link to ‘my videos’ wrongly on the website. The link was actually for ‘your own videos’ so when he clicked on it he found pictures of his granddaughter on a ‘beaver website’ and was incensed. We eventually solved the mystery and soothed all the feathers, and went on to greener pastures and civic adventures of sorts.  It is  very sad to report that I received this from his actual granddaughter this morning.

“George passed away on July 7 peacefully in his home in Martinez, CA. He was quite ill before he died but was not in pain. There was no memorial service, per his request.”

There will never be another George Thomas Kysor and memorial service or no – he will not be forgotten. Thanks for the everything.