Happy Anniversary

Young beaver mother & kit. Photo by Sarah Summerville Unexpected Wildlife Refuge

Our good friend Sarah sends these photos of the newest beavers in the refuge she maintains. Its a young mom who just produced her first ever kit. Sarah is the Director of the Unexpected Wildlife Refuge started by Cavit & Hope Buyukmihci shown here. Their original 85 acres has grown to 737 set aside for wildlife with trails. Visitors and school children are guided through in small groups. In 2001 Hope passed directorship to Sarah who has been lovingly maintaining the refuge since that time.

I’ll let Sarah speak for herself as her website describes what the personal value is of beavers:

Provide Human Beings with Unparalleled Opportunity for Study and Companionship

The beavers have a gift of unique intelligence, are gentle and trusting, and to watch their family life is one of human beings’ most enthralling experiences. I speak not only from personal observation, but from exchanges with others in this country and Canada who have had the privilege of living near beavers and becoming acquainted with them.

While we bemoan the high cost of education, put out money to buy flood and drought insurance, and are sometimes bored with life, the few beavers left in New Jersey are being ousted from their homes by developers or are considered a nuisance if they cut down a tree or create minor flooding. Moving of beavers creates untold hardships. Like human homesteaders, beavers choose a place they find suitable, work hard to make it livable, then resent being force to move.

Although beavers are presently protected from leghold traps in the state of New Jersey, their siblings in other states are not so lucky. Trapping is a crime which should not be allowed to continue for a moment longer in this enlightened age. Beavers mate for life. Beavers love their families, and mourn their dead. Beavers suffer agonies, both mental and physical, if caught in traps to struggle and drown. If they cannot escape by gnawing off a foot, or fail to drown, their fate is to be beaten to death.

Beavers maintain the floodplain, which protects us all. They are as much a part of waterways as the water itself. We humans are created with a sense of thirst because our bodies need water. It’s the same with other animals, but, in addition, beavers are born with a hydrological engineering ability because they need water for safety. The streams, in turn, need their care.

For centuries, beavers stood between the birthplace of the streams in the mountains and the oceans to which the water by its nature flows. Beavers managed the water all along the way, providing for themselves while contributing to the welfare of their total environment and its inhabitants. Was it only by chance that their foods grew right in the water, and along the floodplain, and that poplar, their favorite food, springs eternal from its root system? It springs anew also from beaver-cut stumps.

Over sixty years ago, Enos A. Mills, a pioneer naturalist, wrote:

I hope and half believe that before many years every brook that is born on a great watershed will, as it goes swiftly, merrily singing down the slopes toward the sea, pass through and be steadied in a poetic pond that is made and will be maintained by our patient, persistent, faithful friend the beaver.

Let’s help make Mills’ dream come true.

Kit enjoying treat. Photo by Sarah Summerville Unexpected Wildlife Refuge

Photo: Cheryl Reynolds

Taken before mom’s death, but during her illness, this photo shows our two larger kits exploring the dam and foraging for food. It is an adorable glimpse of their “buddy system” as they venture farther a field (and closer to Cheryl’s camera) than they have ever gone. Since mom’s death and their “adoption” by the bi-yearling, they are much more cautious because they have the luxury of caution. They’re also waking up later which means their tummies are fuller and they are probably being fed in the lodge. We saw the first kit at 6 on Saturday night, but not until 8 on Sunday.

These two seem to come in tandem and are nearly the same size. A smaller kit usually comes on its own and is much less skilled at swimming and breaking off branches, let alone diving. That’s the one that rode on mom’s back on the June 13th movie. The bi-yearling was present last night, bringing branches in the lodge before going for his “alone time” over the dam. Jon followed him to see what he was doing but he slipped off into the scrape near the secondary dam. It is likely that he is marking the territory to keep other beavers away and checking for trouble. He’s not gone long enough to be feeding and there’s plenty to eat closer to home in the annex.

Dad hasn’t been seen the last few nights, and I got an email from Sarah Summerville of the Unexpected Wildlife Refuge that might explain that.

In Dorothy Richards’ (and our Hope Sawyer Buyukmihci’s) book Beaversprite, she documented seeing “grief” in her beavers at the loss of a mate or kitten. It sounds like the kittens are reverting to younger behavior, and the yearling is probably like a new mother, too overwhelmed and busy to grieve. How is dad doing? Is he business as usual, or is he absent? She documented the grieving parents staying in the lodge and not eating for several days.

I can’t imagine beaver couples are passionate about their mates, but they are certainly used to them and spend hours side by side in the lodge or working on the dam and that loss could certainly be felt. We’ll keep watch and see what’s up with dad. At the moment I’d like another adult in the pond to keep an eye on the kits when the bi-yearling goes foraging. We are reluctant to leave until he comes back after his little “alone time”, but we can’t be beaver-sitters forever.

I draw the line at working on the dam. They’re just going to have to do that themselves.