A couple months ago I commented about an article from naturalist Carla Carlson in Niagra. She was writing about strange beaver phenomena like coprophagia without actually mentioning anything useful that beavers contribute to the watershed. Wasted air time much? I was reassured by mutual friends that she was a good egg, so I sent her a care package of beaver education, and received a response. Let’s be honest, I wasn’t exactly hopeful, but it seemed worth a shot.

If only we were more like the beaver

Quoting from Water by Alice Outwater, “Beavers do more to shape their landscape than any other mammal except for human beings, and their ancestors were building dams 10 million years ago. These Miocene beavers were seven feet long, felling trees ages before the mammoths roamed. Their underground spiral burrows can be found from western Europe to central Asia and North America. Legends of these prehistoric giants were once widespread. The Indians of Nova Scotia claimed to know of an ancient beaver dam so vast that it flooded the Annapolis Valley. Farther west, tales circulated of tribal ancestors using immense beaver teeth to hollow out their canoes.

“In tribes across North America, legend had it that the beaver helped the Great Spirit build the land, make the seas, and fill both well with animals and people. Long, long ago when the Great Waters surged in a blind and shoreless world, the gigantic beaver swam and dove and spoke with the Great Spirit. The two of them brought up all the mud they could carry, digging out the caves and canyons and shaping the mud into hills and dales, making mountains where cataracts plunged and sang. Some tribes believed that thunder was caused by the great beaver slapping his tail.”

Love the title! This is much better! A recognition of beaver dams shaping landscapes for millions of years! Which they’re still trying to do today…Honestly this is a much smarter introduction to beavers, well, except for the fact that scientists think Castorides didn’t build dams, or chew trees…Honestly, I hate to look a beaver gift horse in the mouth, but the collection of facts in this article bear no resemblance to the facts I am familiar with…

Their mating, breeding season is from January through February. “beavers sometimes mate in the relative comfort of their lodges, but more often choose to couple under water, and in some cases, under the ice.”

We have footage of our beavers mating in December, on the surface of the water.

Those females that find mates at two years of age or older, (usually three years old), breed every year, ovulating 2-4 times at seven to 15 day intervals during the breeding season. The larger the female the larger her litter.

Natural History of a Wetlands Engineer: Dietland Muller-Swarze

However, the numbers born are dependent on the number of yearlings living with her, the more of them, the fewer newborns. Nature is beyond amazing isn’t it?

In 2007, our beaver mom had zero beaver living with her and produced 4. In 2008 mom had 4 beavers living with her and produced 4. In 2009 mom had four beavers living with her and produced four. In 2010 mom had zero beaver living with her and produced three. This year our new mom had zero beavers living with her and produced one.

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Sigh. People sometimes tell me I’m too exacting. Ruthlessly committed to precision instead of listening to the gist of the message. Okay, its possible that’s true when folks talk about beavers too. I was trying to be patient. Really I was.

It just took too long.