Remember a few days ago we talked about the great new park in Delaware based on stories of the Nanicoke tribe? I showed you the new climbing structure where parents can use their smart phone to hear the creation story of “How the beaver got its tail” and I was so impressed I said I would go looking for it. Well I did and I just know you want to hear all about it.
Well according to the Ojibwe legend, the beaver used to have a beautiful fluffy tail – kind of a cross between a squirrel and a fox and a wolverine. And it would stroll vainly across the forest like Princess Diana in her wedding veil and ask other creatures if they admired it? (more…)
There is hardly a thing not to like about this article from Kootenay British Columbia. Located just above Idaho they are using students to wrap and protect cotton woods which is way better than trapping beavers.
Not only are beavers our national animal, the largest rodent in North America, and skilled builders, they are a keystone species. A keystone species is a living thing that fills an essential role in their ecosystem that no other species can.
Our friendly beavers are ecosystem engineers and one of the only mammals capable of changing a habitat. The trees that beavers fall to construct their dams and lodges are also a source of food for them. Unfortunately, this practice has impacted populations of young cottonwoods negatively in out river (riparian) systems.(more…)
The Daily Mail is generally despised and regarded as half a rung above the National Inquierer, but sometimes they do post fun articles about beavers for some reason. I guess when there’s no royal behavior to speculate on.
A power outage that left 1,000 people in a small Utah town in the dark this weekend was caused by a huge beaver who gnawed through a tree and sent it crashing into power lines.
Nearly 1,000 residents of Logan were left without power for nearly an hour on Sunday afternoon after a large tree landed on powerlines. But the tree had help falling down and in a letter to the mayor, a safety officer confirmed a particularly large beaver was the behind the outage after gnawing through the base of the tree, causing it to tip over.
In a Facebook post addressed to the city’s mayor, safety officer Brody Parker confirmed that a beaver, located between the Boulevard and Canyon Road, dropped a large tree that landed on the power lines. After helping clean the trees and clear the area on Monday, Ambrie Darley, the Human Resource Director for the City of Logan, captured the animal on Tuesday, Parker wrote.
Is that a really a HUGE beaver? It’s weird because he seems to be just the right size for the cage she happened to bring. Funny they would bring such a large cage for beavers that are, everyone knows, much much smaller.
Good thing they caught that great big TREE CHEWING beaver. The other ones won’t present a threat to the power lines I’m sure.They probably just eat daisies or something. Did someone tell the mayor that Logan Utah is famous for coexisting with the beavers that settled in Walmart property?
The late summer rabid beaver story. We get them every year, and it’s truly impossible to know whether they arise from a truly rabid beaver OR a beaver protecting it’s young that are born in the summer, Surely we never ever hear about rabid beavers in the winter or spring. But then no one usually wants to swim then either.
GREENFIELD — A 73-year-old Greenfield man is recovering from injuries suffered when his leisurely swim in a remote Franklin County pond turned into a life-or-death fight with an enraged, and likely rabid, beaver.
Mark “Pres” Pieraccini suffered extensive injuries in the Sept. 6 attack, and came close to drowning. He had multiple puncture wounds, flesh torn from an arm and a leg, scratches and lacerations over his body and scalp, and a torn tendon on one of his fingers. He also has a fractured knuckle on one hand, mostly likely from punching the beaver as it repeatedly attacked him.
He is also undergoing treatment for rabies.
In an interview with The Republican, Pieraccini said fighting a prolonged battle with an enraged 50-pound wild animal while trying to stay afloat left him exhausted. While the fight continued in the deep water — he estimated it lasted five minutes — it occurred to him that he was in deep trouble.
They man doesn’t want to say which beaver pond because he likes beavers and doesn’t want Mass Wildlife to kill them. So he’s clearly not a threat. But I myself spent 10 years of lazy mornings and evenings in very close quarters with beavers and their young and never felt in the least in danger.
Still when you think of what a tree looks like after beavers chew on it his leg doesn’t look that bad.
He said the doctors and nurses at the emergency room didn’t really grasp what he was saying when he told them he had been attack by a beaver. And then he took off his clothes to reveal the full extent of his injuries.
“No one had any clue what I was dealing with until I took my clothes off,” he said.”
Based on his research, Woodard said there have been just 11 attacks by beavers on people in North America over the last 10 years. In comparison, there have been 445 shark attacks, seven of them fatal, in the U.S. over the same period.
Most of those 11 beaver attacks involved beavers that were rabid. Woodard said he has no doubts, based on Pieraccini’s description and on the extent of his injuries, that his beaver was also rabid. The beaver has not been recovered, so there is no way to verify it.
The sad thing for the beaver of course is that every beaver in it’s family will soon be rabid too. Unless a rabid beaver is too crazed to swim home in the morning. In which case one or two might escape.
Having lived an outdoor lifestyle for most of my life, I have come across a wide assortment of animals in distress. I once saved a baby pronghorn that misjudged the height of a barbwire fence, and a similar situation with a doe mule deer that had both hind legs tangles in the wire.
Lately, I have been seeing some very disturbing reports about beavers. My relationship with the beaver goes way back to my childhood and ranch days with my grandparents.
We had several creeks that flowed through our little ground. The water was very important to us, but for different reasons. My grandfather wanted the water to flow, free of obstructions, and irrigate his hay fields, so he could make money to keep us in daily gruel. I wanted the creeks for fishing.
The beavers dammed up the creeks, making wonderful ponds that held many trout. I would wade these ponds amongst the many beavers, and they basically ignored me. They never attacked me or threatened me for that matter. We maintained a very equitable relationship. They made ponds for me to fish in, and I kept the information from my grandfather, lest he blow the ponds, much to the dismay of the beavers and me.
So far so good, Some fond memories of swimming with beavers on the farm and fishing in their ponds. We like this story so far,
Science tells us that beavers can be very aggressive when defending their territory against interlopers. They might also attack humans when infected with rabies, although it is rare for a beaver to become rabid. There is also some thinking that beavers can become disoriented during the daylight hours and attack out of fear.
I have never found a beaver to be aggressive. I have walked up next to them, fished alongside of them, and watched them work on a pond for hours, never having one display any type of aggressiveness towards me. Perhaps that is about to change.
A 60-year-old fisherman in Belarus (a landlocked country in Europe) died when he was attacked by a beaver. The beaver tore open an artery and the man bled to death.
The media described the incident as “the latest in a series of beaver attacks on humans in the country.” Authorities claim the beaver was rabid, while others stated the man grabbed the beaver in an attempt to take a picture with it, hence the marshmallow and bison outcome.
Here the author does a fair job of walking through the famous beaver stories in the past few years, all cases of rabies or very very poor judgement. Or both.
Then he says something I truly enjoyed, Make sure you read this closely.
I am not sure if the beavers are seeking reparations for the years of trapping, they endured or if they hate kayaks. In either event, I am going to start keeping a closer eye on them when I am fishing a beaver pond. They may still be angry about the way my grandfather used to blow their ponds with dynamite.
Yes, Yes they are, I am too. Watch yourself around us buddy.
That’s what I’d call him, Problem is he’s in Maine and all the smart people are on jury duty this week, or something. He simply can’t find a SOUL who know’s what he should do except kill em,
Nobody really wants a family of beavers to take up residence in their backyard. At least, that’s what I’m coming to understand after just such a thing happened to me. The responses I’ve received since sharing my tale of woe a week ago have largely fallen into the vein of “trap ’em,” “whack ’em” or “hire someone to trap ’em and whack ’em.”
Of course, most of those responses came from a group of my friends who are a bit more unforgiving toward unwanted wildlife invasions than your group of pals might be.
A couple of others reached out to tell me that they had other ideas. The basic flavor of those responses: When life gives you beavers, make — well — arts and crafts, I suppose.
The article is written by John Holyoke of the Bangor daily news. He’s a sports and outdoor columnist so you would think he would appreciate having better fishing and duck hunting on his property, not to mention clean water and fire protection. But what do I know?
But back to my current beaver issue. Since my tree didn’t fall on the house, I’m reluctant to call the situation a “problem.” Yet.
After noticing the fallen tree and its beaver-chewed neighbor, I deployed a trail camera recently and have been eagerly waiting for more evidence of beaver activity that I could share with you. Unfortunately, according to my less-than-scientific beaver-o-meter, it doesn’t appear that the still-standing tree has taken any more mega-bites over the past eight days.
Or, I guess, I meant to say “fortunately.” Not that this tree is long for the world, mind you — Bucky has already reduced it to a leaning tower of birch that (again, fortunately) is tilted away from the house.
Still, I knew you’d love to see a video of my (current) nemesis (see also: red squirrels, moose, deer, et al.), so I had hoped to have had better luck.
That’s not to say that I had no luck at all, mind you.
I did get a great video of another critter visiting the scene of the beaver’s property crime. And when I first watched the video on a small thumbnail screen, I was quite certain that I’d captured footage of the world’s most acrobatic and agile beaver.
Unfortunately (or is it fortunately?), my visitor was only a gray squirrel. And fortunately (or is it unfortunately?), the squirrel showed no interest in helping the beaver chew down the rest of my tree.
Poor man doesn’t even know where to put a camera, Do you have any water on your property? maybe a dam or a lodge? If all you have is a single tree that got chewed I’d say too bad, all you have is a beaver drive-by which gives you time to read up on how lucky you’ll be if they ever come back. i have just the book.
Remember a few days ago we talked about the great new park in Delaware based on stories of the Nanicoke tribe? I showed you the new climbing structure where parents can use their smart phone to hear the creation story of “How the beaver got its tail” and I was so impressed I said I would go looking for it. Well I did and I just know you want to hear all about it.
are a keystone species. A keystone species is a living thing that fills an essential role in their ecosystem that no other species can.
A power outage that left 1,000 people in a small 
GREENFIELD — A 73-year-old Greenfield man is recovering from injuries suffered when his leisurely swim in a remote Franklin County pond turned into a life-or-death fight with an enraged, and likely rabid, beaver.
He is also undergoing treatment for rabies.
Nobody really wants 
