So my computer has been taken away for repairs, I’m losing my mind with this tiny laptop and I have a cough, Are those reasons enough to be lazy? I hope so because our new otter friends asked me to write a post about beavers and otters for their shiny new website and I thought I’d repost it here. Birds with stones, right? Make sure you go look at their website, because it seems more respectable over there. (After 5 years posting here has become a lot like singing in the shower.)
“The thing is – a landscape that suits beavers becomes one that suits otter so the two, while not friends, are almost inseparable.”
Do you remember as a child that kid on the block that always went to your school, shopped with her mom at the same store, and hung around where you wanted to play but was never exactly a ‘friend’? Maybe she was too rude or too bossy or too uncool to actually play with, but she was never very far away. In fact, as you grew up you might or have gotten braces from the same dentist, worked in the same factory or married cousins from the same family. Regardless of your particular likes and dislikes, your fate seemed tangled up with hers: linked forever by circumstances that played a more essential role in both your developments than character.
This is the fate of the otter and the beaver.
As the founder of Worth A Dam and an early advocate for the famous Martinez Beavers, I ended up knowing a lot more about both species than I ever planned. This 16th century portrayal makes me laugh and conveys something of the attitudes both creatures have conjured over the centuries. Neighbors in every way but neighborly, beaver and otters couldn’t be much more different. Otters are thrill seeking opportunistic fish eaters that troll vast territories for their daily meal. Beavers are family oriented herbivores that stay in one place and sculpt the same landscape over and over again until it matches their needs.
The thing is – a landscape that suits beavers becomes one that suits otter so the two, while not friends, are almost inseparable.
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This is true even though otter [carnivores] are considered a threat to very young beaver kits. While there is controversy among researchers as to whether otters actually predate beaver when they can get them, what I’ve seen from our local beavers seems to indicate that their furry minds at least are made up. Although their arrival is ignored most of the year, each May when otters that visit the beaver pond they are greeted with a series of very loud tail slaps until they saunter nonchantly away. I first saw this on an early visit to the beavers in 2007 when I discovered a very large otter sitting atop the beaver lodge. It was so early in the story that at the time I admittedly remember saying in confusion, ‘That’s not a beaver, right?”
The father beaver soon chased that otter away and sent the waters echoing with a total of nineteen memorable tail slaps! Since that time I have never observed more than one or two at a time and they seem most likely to occur in the spring. We know that otters like to rest and den in abandoned beaver lodges and on two separate occasions I saw eager otters try to enter the beaver lodge only to be roundly chased out by mom beaver or one of the yearlings.
One young otter in 2010 was renowned for using the pipe of the flow device as a kind of “waterslide” to climb through to the beaver pond. He could be heard noisily banging his way through the PVC and would emerge on the other side out of the filter, slip through the protective fencing and begin devouring available fish. I like to say that he eventually ate so many fish that he stopped fitting IN the pipe and had to cross over the dam like everyone else. Whatever the reason, he eventually stopped coming.
The fact remains: beaver dams create ideal conditions that improve fish population density and diversity. In fact, in Oregon and Washington beaver ponds on public lands are protected as essential fish habitat and NOAA has been active in promoting this. Not waiting for California to get on board otters are already drawn to our beaver ponds where they are sometimes unwelcome and mostly ignored. As an avid canoe-er, I am used to finding river otter along the Albion, Navarro or Russian rivers, but I never understood how urban their population could be until I started watching beavers. It has become a predictable surprise to be looking downstream for the familiar “V” of the low swimming beaver and see one or two heads pop up suddenly out of the water as if they were standing on ladders below its surface. Otter visitors! Enjoyed around town for a couple hours or a couple days before leaving as suddenly as they arrived.
This summer’s Beaver Festival will celebrate the role of beavers and creeks with a fitting display from the River Otter Ecology Project. Otter peeps should join us on August 4th from 11-4. I hope we will see you all there to learn your stories of these two remarkable species!
Thanks Paula and Megan! I’m sure if we can help turn otter supporters into beaver believers we can change the world. Make sure you check out their whole site and their citizen science proposal. They are moving by leaps and bounds and just did an abc interview last week! Write down all your otter questions and bring them to the beaver festival, okay?
Oh and word this a.m. from our friends in El Dorado Hills Four Seasons. Three beavers seen at once last night and some very audible noises. I’m guessing they have babies!
Even better news tonight. We went out about 7:50 to see if we could see any beaver activity on our pond. Just like clockwork, out they came swimming along majestically! We saw three for sure! It was wonderful to see them. I don’t know how they’re avoiding the traps, but so far they have. And whatever sound I’m hearing is coming from them. They swam out from the exact spot I hear the sounds coming from. SP
whatever sound I’m hearing is coming from them. They swam out from the exact spot I hear the sounds coming from. SP
