This much:
If you look closely you can see the 14 bbs along this beavers muzzle. Maybe you have been dazzled by all the good kumbyya beaver news into thinking that the animal is no longer hated but when you feel everything is better just remember this poor little beaver blind in one eye and still hanging on even with pneumonia.
We aren’t outta the woods yet, ladies.
Coming across a fresh pile of wood chips next to a newly chewed tree is kind of magical. It’s like a sign that there’s another world happening while we are asleep. I remember as a child be fascinated by the story of “The Borrowers” Who were a tiny family that lived unknown in your house and came at night to collect the leftover thread spools or wine corks which to them were as big as dining tables.
Seeing a pile of chips is a reminder that life goes on especially when you’re not looking.
Beaver (Castor canadensis), is this week’s featured creature. Last week while I was exploring natural areas adjacent to the Iowa River, I spotted at a distance several cottonwood trees with damaged bases.
It turns out the damage was caused by the teeth of beavers who had made serious attempts to fell these not so small trees. I examined the profuse pile of wood chips at the tree base, an amount not insignificant.
I am sure the beavers returned to complete their task. It will be a new site for my examination when I return.
The beaver family, most likely more than one, had created an access from the open river waters up a steep bank and through a small canyon-like trail their feet had scratched out of the river bank edge. Many travel trips up and down this trail had made the route quite evident. Once several of the nearby cottonwood trees are felled, this rodent family will have plenty of tender bark tops from manageable smaller branches to eat.
You can see the site of the chips got him musing about their makers. Planning and effort went into this destruction. There are goals and means to ends.
The evidence is most likely a small mud and stick dam across a small to medium sized stream. Other evidence can be nearby crop field damage, or the cutting of willow and other small to medium sized waterway trees.
I have not observed a beaver dam across the Iowa River in Marshall County during my 50 plus years of river watching. Perhaps because of the river size, beavers prefer to use smaller tributary water flows.
However, as one travels upstream on the Iowa into Hardin and Franklin County, where the river becomes a smaller and smaller channel, beaver dam building attempts are possible. Local farmers will be displeased with beaver primarily if impounded waters block the outlet to field tile lines. A backhoe will be employed to dig out the dam. The pest side of beaver actions is all too common.
Gee do ya think that might be why you’ve never seen a beaver dam on the river?
Beaver impoundments do create new wildlife habitat. New water and deeper water will be utilized by many fish species and birds. Local wood duck pairs may find a water filled stream an excellent close by location for their tree cavity nesting activities this spring.
Otter may explore the same waters as will muskrats. Diving birds like the Kingfisher will find its fish foods in those mini lakes.
Human county and state engineers who have had to deal with beaver dams know all too well the problems that dam plugged culverts can impose to a roadway if heavy rains and flooding runoff waters cannot safely flow through a culvert. A washed out road is a big expensive repair project. Prevention is worth the effort if a beaver dam is being built in the wrong place and discovered before a big rain event.
Yes beavers bring things that benefit other species and things that make your life harder. It’s almost as if they aren’t specifically interested in our happiness at all.
Beaver info sheet
Two weeks ago, history was made at Nene Wetlands as a family of eight beavers settled into their new home – the first beavers in Northants for 400 years! 🦫 Among them is Boudica, a remarkable three-legged female who has thrived in the wild, raising a large, healthy family despite losing one of her forelegs, likely as a young kit. We caught up with Gavin Bennett and Ben Casey from @BCNWildlifeTrust at the release to hear more about this milestone moment. Find out more about the release: https://beavertrust.org/beavers-retur… Find out more about the project: https://www.wildlifebcn.org/beavers
This is a really special film with one glaring error. I’ll let you,find it for yourself but while you look for it just enjoy those lovely low tidal dams. And remember that people who think they know everything about beavers are always wrong.
And on the day when the National park employees where shattered and the forest service and weather service and cancer researchers were gutted – when the heads of all branches of the military were fired and replaced by yes men – indeed when the very American experiment seemed at its most dire… this happened.
Because beavers change things. That’s what they do.
Summary
The Act allows agencies to award moneys under a grant program related to living with beavers on private land. The Act directs an agency and a committee to report on the grant program. The Act gives moneys to the agency for the grant program. The Act goes into effect on the 91st day after the 2025 session ends. (Flesch Readability Score: 62.3). Establishes the Landowners Living with Beavers Grant Program Subaccount in the Oregon Conservation and Recreation Fund. Authorizes the State Department of Fish and Wildlife to award block grants from the subaccount under the Landowners Living with Beavers Grant Program, on recommendations from the Oregon Conservation and Recreation Advisory Committee. Directs the department and the committee to jointly report on the grant program to committees or interim committees of the Legislative Assembly related to the environment on or before September 15, 2027. Appropriates moneys from the General Fund to the department for deposit in the subaccount for purposes related to the grant program. Takes effect on the 91st day following adjournment sine die.
