Worth A Dam has been quietly mourning the fact that we had no kits that survived this year. It is hard to know why that was, but we know some reasons why it wasn’t. It was not because of inadequate food supply, because the rest of our family is looking quite fat and happy. Our beavers are eating mainly tulles with a side of willow, and with the entire marina at their disposal they aren’t running out of cattails any time soon. It was also probably not because the mink ate them. A beaver kit, even newborn, is the size of a guinea pig and a mink is smaller than a cat. Also mink are notoriously messy eaters and would likely leave clues. Jon has been checking the creek in the kayak and hasn’t seen signs of what happened. One benefit of the mink is that they are very high on the food chain, so if they were here and thriving it gives us an important clue about creek health, which suggest that it probably wasn’t something bad in the water either.
It may have something to do with mom’s eye condition, and her not being well enough to care for them. From what we could see she stopped milk production early and she may have just been unable to feed them. Or maybe they weren’t around anymore so milk production wasn’t triggered. A good portion of beaver watching is guesswork, and to be honest, we just don’t know why we didn’t have surviving kits this year. We hope its a one-time event, and that we get a new batch next year, but we just don’t know what will happen.
Photo: Cheryl Reynolds
Which brings me to the title of this post. What happens next year? Normally kits hang around and become yearlings and last year’s-yearlings take off and become adults. What happens when you skip a generation? Our three yearlings are still here and healthy and almost ready for the world. Will 2008 beavers be “failure to launch” yearlings? Will they stick around for an extra lesson in dam building and become bi-yearlings? The research says they can stay with the colony 2-3 years, so this could be the three they’re talking about. How will Mom and Dad feel about them sticking around? Aren’t you curious?
Speaking of curious, if you want to know more about the origins of algae bloom that is causing so much grief for the north coast’s seabirds (and our VP of wildlife!) check out this slideshow and lecture from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It’s a great introduction to the issue.
