There’s a new “God Bless Trappers” article in today’s Augusta Chronicle out of Georgia. Fortunately the target Du Jour is alligators, but it does raise a question that has been much on my mind. How on earth do these species co-exist? Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida all boast a big enough beaver population that they go out of their way to kill them. But they also have plenty of ‘gator. Both species are semi aquatic neighbors who can hold their breath for more than 15 minutes. How can they possibly exist in the same area? It’s like having a serial killer in the middle of a playground.
“But it really has to be a good-sized alligator before it can take something the size of a beaver or a wild goose,” Parnell said. “They just aren’t the evil critter they’re made out to be. They really do a great job of cleaning up your pond.”
As always in times of question I turn to the experts. This is from Dietland Muller-Swarze’s chapter on predators that enjoy beaver.
So during the summer – when there are tender kits to sample – the alligators move someplace deeper? In these southern states where there’s mostly droughts going on anyway in the summer? Permit me to doubt. Apparently its so much fun seeing if alligator eat beaver they get a grant to try it every few years. Here’s some earlier studies out of Mississippi.
Control for Nuisance Beaver Southeast United States (Vertibrate Pest Conference 1976)
Other approaches to beaver control have been or are currently under investigation. Among theseis evaluation of the American alligator [Alligator mississippiensis (Daudin)] as a potential predator. A preliminary study was initiated by the author in three fishing lakes near the Auburn University campus. Each lake contained one or more active beaver colonies and was stocked during thesummer of 1972 with an alligator at least seven feet in length. Observations were made to detectbeaver and alligator interaction. On one occasion a large alligator was observed to come half out of the water in an attempt to catch a beaver swimming on the surface. On another occasion, this same alligator was observed to have chased two beaver out of the water and onto the shore during mid day in July. The alligators were not known to have controlled the beavers in these ponds.“Were not known to have controlled beavers in these ponds?” WTF does that mean? That’s one pretty passive tense for a research paper. All your grad students fell asleep at the same time and your not sure what happened to the beaver? You forgot to care? They were eaten but it wasn’t bloody enough to hold your attention? (Less you think I exaggerate, you are welcome to read the REST of the article where they experiment with painting guar gum trees with strychnine so that the beaver would be poisoned when they chew them.) And no I’m not kidding.
I, of course, should be pardoned for laughing aloud when I got to this part;
I guess its one thing to put a seven foot predator in a beaver pond to snack on the rodents, but its an entirely different thing when the nine-foot victor comes ashore looking for dessert. So the mystery of how beavers and alligators exist in the same space at the same time persists. The Lands Council Joe Cannon grew up in Florida so I thought he would at least be able to help me. Over dinner I asked him, “how do they do it?” He told me assuredly “They don’t”.
Except they do.
On the entire internet and all of youtube you will find zero pictures of these species side by side. You will find zero footage of alligator eating beaver and zero pictures of beaver swimming hurriedly away. I can’t understand it. I know alligators are active at night, at least during mating season, because I’ve heard them croaking away in the Everglades after the sun goes down. I know that beaver populations are still problematic in gator states because I’ve read article after article about how best to kill them in. How on earth does it happen that every single alligator hatched doesn’t eat every single beaver born?
Some where in the South is a hero who has stories or footage that would shed light on this mystery. Someone lives near a swamp with a beaver dam and has seen these animals side by side. I can only implore that they write me and let the rest of us know.
In the mean time, this is lovely and peaceful footage of one of the most magical places I have ever been in gator country. I hadn’t driven a quarter of a mile before my life list tripled in length.
