One of the parts I most enjoyed about Hope Ryden’s Lily Pond was her fastidious observation of beaver differences that allowed to tell individual members of the colony apart. She described things like different fur color, toenail color and behavior. We have never been half that skilled with our beavers, and one of the reasons mom was always so popular is that she came to us with a unique signature tail that made her recognizable — eventually. (It was December of 2007 before I really ‘saw’ the marking in her tail. Moses was showing footage of her and dad almost mating and you could tell ‘who was who’ by ahem what they were doing.) That was the introduction to mom’s unique tail, which was later confirmed when her breast feeding kits produced visible teats.
With mom gone and Dad and the two year old nearly the same size, our job is much harder. I thought I would write down some of the clues we use to tell them apart. Appearance is a big one. Our two-year old is a sleek, handsome beaver who looks ready to take on the world. I describe him as “GQ” beaver, although there is no way to infer gender. Dad is more ‘Marlboro Man”. Different facial coloring gives him a ‘weathered’ look, as if he has been around the block a few times and seen it all before. Here’s identical footage of each coming back over the beaver dam. The one on the bottom is Dad.
Another clue I am more confident with is behavior. Dad is a stealthy, canny and often sneaky beaver. He usually emerges from the lodge with only a string of bubbles that reach all the way to the dam and then slips over the gap without any noise at all. He does not usually approach areas where people are and can give a tail slap just because he dislikes being watched from the bridge. The two year old was starting to act more like dad up until the kits adoption further confounding the difficulties, but now GQ beaver is very visible, swimming close to inspect for any threat and keeping an eye on where the kits get to. Dad is actually more visible too, stopping to pick up a branch for the kits and take it back to the lodge. Behavior is a clue, but its a changeable clue.
Telling the kits apart? Now that’s another job entirely. We have a crack team of beaver-identification-ologists working on it around the clock and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
