I am sharing this mornings horrifically blurry video with you so that you can see a plucky beaver swim up with a stick, feel his way through a pile of new willow on the secondary dam, and turn about to do a little poking. He made some repairs and went up to the bank hole where he proceeded to remove a bunch of sticks and mud. I will confess to you now that I have no idea who it was. He was much bigger than the kit I saw last week, (look at his broad nose in the lower video!) Cheryl says smaller than the beaver she photographed yesterday which suggest to me, (along with the fact that a month of rare beaver sightings has left me very stupid) that we have at least three colony members: our littlest kit who loves to use reeds, at least one of our fat kits that have yet to prove themselves as much good at anything, and at least one adult who brought a huge supply of willow. That’s three. Who knows maybe there are still five?
Beavers are remarkable creatures. You might be tired of hearing that from me but this morning I have something REALLY remarkable about them to share. This is a bit of beaver lore so fantastic and anthropomorphic sounding I never dared repeat it in public before. Even I, who admire them so dramatically more than preschool teachers or paramedics, did not believe it and assumed it was a bit of romantic mythology.
Not so much, apparently.
In the glowingly affectionate book “Beaver Sprite“, Dorothy Richards describes that when the kits were ready to disperse the father beaver took them on a trek, found them a nice new habitat, helped them get settled in, and then returned to the colony. Imagine! Of course she brought beavers home to eat in her kitchen, so I thought “yes, that and the tooth fairy are nice stories but lets get back to business.” Then I read this same thing in Enos Mills “In Beaver World” which is slightly less whimsical.
Could this possibly be true? It seemed staggeringly unlikely. I realized almost in passing that all our dispersals have happened without warning or fanfare, but always in periods where we have gone a long time without seeing Dad. Hmm. Of course Dad is harder to see from November to June anyway, it proves nothing, but it disproves nothing either. Last night I got the final data of support that helped me find the courage to report this unbelievable fact.
- Tiller Beaver Research Project, Falcon Creek
So this is one of the relocated research beavers of our friends in Oregon who organized the State of the Beaver Conference. So I asked Leonard Houston, tell me about this old wives tale of beaver parents getting their children settled in new digs? And what do you suppose he answered? “Our telemetry proves it”. Apparently these radar tracked beavers have shown unequivocally that when a kit is ready to ‘launch’ the adults take him out to the edge of the territory (closer to home if the habitat is good, farther if its bad) and get them settled with the start of a bank hole or dam before rejoining the colony. Only Len says their data shows it’s BOTH PARENTS, not just dad.
Would mom go if she had young kits to take care of? Well the way beaver lives work she wouldn’t probably have young kits. She’d be pregnant and maybe have almost-yearlings. So I guess, depending on how far along she was, depending on what time of year kits are born in the region, she’d stay behind, but it sounds like sometimes she’d go help Junior get his start in life.
I guess, from a purely evolutionary self-interest point of view it makes sense to A) make sure you’re offspring moves out of your territory and B) make sure they have a nice place so they don’t come BACK! (Perhaps some parents of adult children could relate. )But still. That is awesome. I love the idea that Dad took our beavers to their new home, where ever it was. It makes their future seem seem so much safer. Say it with me now. Beavers are SO COOL!
- Beaver Closeup – Cheryl Reynolds
