This remarkable clip is from the Philadelphia zoo, which just enjoyed the birth of six new kits this year. Did you click play? Go ahead, I’ll wait, and its worth it, I promise.
What I love about the clip is that it shows how the kits are using mom’s tail as a seat cushion to feed. I love seeing her rubbing her own tummy, maybe to stimulate milk production, or maybe because its just part of the mutual grooming beaver trance. (See this video for a demonstration!) I love seeing the parts of their lives that we’re usually denied, although every time I see one of these videos I hate the concrete habitat a little more. Still, the beavers are apparently thriving in their miniature golf-scape, and engaged in very normal looking beaver behavior. So it can’t be all bad.
Last night’s beaver viewing saw a yearling that decided not to sleep at the frat house, and a veryyyyy tiny muskrat. Creek friend Robert Rust paddled his kayak through water and did a much-needed cleanup. Beaver regulars gathered to watch the massively high tide flow up and over the dam and through the recently-plugged-up whole under the viewing platform. Oh how I wished for some sandbags to keep the water at that height when the tides changed! The pipe was hidden, even the filter was submerged. It was beautiful.
But no man can tether time nor tide, I’m told….sigh.
