I’ve been snooping around a bit on the subject of urban beavers, and came across this fun report from the city of Akron Ohio. True, the emphasis of the article is that you can hire us because beavers move into urban spaces and we’ll remove them – but the pictures are fun. And so familiar to us in Martinez that I thought you’d smile.
Beavers Adapt to Urban and Suburban Environments
Do you think beavers only inhabit pristine wilderness areas? If so, we offer these pictures and blog entry to shine some light on the very adaptable nature of beavers. All it really takes to have beavers move into your neighborhood is a waterway and some trees.
The following series of pictures documents a beaver colony living (and thriving) in an urban area of Akron, Ohio. Industrial sounds and smells…littered plastic bags and styrofoam cups…the rumble of freight trains…all just par for the course for this beaver colony.
Taking a walk toward the beavers’ hut, one of the urban beavers is spotted. With a water intake for a chemical processor on one side and an industrial complex on the other side, an adult beaver swims down the waterway to get a bite to eat.
Closer towards the hut, there happened to be a tree which took root precariously between two railroad trestle foundations. In spite of the graffiti (included for realism, not offense) and train traffic, the beavers apparently like to hang out under the bridge and get their gnaw on.
Yes, beavers have adapted to urban environments. What’s your point? So have foxes and crows and raccoons, to name a few. If they hadn’t all adapted they’d be in a mess of trouble. Because our environments are overwhelming urban in this day and age. 81% of humans live in these urban spaces. So I’m sure the stats for beavers are similarly high.
Just a little further up the canal and the main hut is visible. As you can see, this is a large and active hut. There is an ample feed bed (all the sticks in the water in front of the hut) as the beaver family has made preparations for ice cover. A smoke stack and large industrial site are close by in the background.
On the walk back to the car, the beaver that was out for a swim is found perched on a log having a meal of some underwater vegetation. This beaver was not very skittish of human presence: we were within twenty feet of it. It kept its eye on us, but we never got the tail slap we were expecting. To us it seemed as conditioned to human gawkers as it does to its gritty urban environment.
We get it. Beavers in urban settings with plastic cups and trains. Smoke stacks and pavement in the background. Understood. Did you know the beavers of Martinez once used a golf club in making their lodge? And because of our unique homeless population, we pulled not one but TWO prosthetic legs off the dam? When a city lives along side beavers it benefits by having increased wildlife, better birds and cleaner water. Do you know any cities that wouldn’t like that?
And I hate to tell tales out of school, but that beaver in your photo is kind of ugly. Ours are much prettier next to their plastic cups.
Another enjoyable urban find is this video of someone who was surprised to see beavers in their city. Listen to the narration, her companion is positively terrified. She writes of the incident thusly: Just 5 blocks down the street on my way to Starbucks I noticed damage on the trees apparently from beaver activity… yes, I believed to be crazy at the time, but today, coming back from Starbucks with Patrick we found this one that you can see and a second one we couldn’t catch on camera, but it’s real, we have beavers! and I guess that is fantastic! regards.
Urban beavers from Aubrey Scully on Vimeo.
