This is the time of year we all feel empathy for our hardworking beavers, who fix the dam one night only to have it pour rain the next and wash it out again. Now of course they have three potential washouts sites to deal with and after the water takes everything out to sea they have to find materials to pack them all again. Sometimes, in my most desperate hour, I have a fantasy of bringing down sandbags to reinforce the dam. Can you image how the property owner would respond to that?
All this to say I got this update from Linda last night on the work load…
Btw I saw (Beaver friend JO) pacing along the dams last night when I got back from dinner. I can’t say as I blame her because I was feeling a tad pensive myself. So at 4:30 when we were down there watching the beavers “spring” into action I texted her and let her know there were hard at work. I thought I would save her from worrying too much, sure enough she showed up there at 5:00am to see for herself. One of the bigger beavers was still hard at it at 8:30 when I left.
Work isn’t something beavers “complete”, and its indistinguishable from play and rest and feeding. Our beavers aren’t planning an early retirement so in truth they just respond to washouts the same way every time with no cumulative wear. Maybe humans would say, “that’s it! I can’t take it anymore!” But beavers just pick up a log and get to work.
More evidence of beaver persistence came this weekend as we visited the colony site on Tribal lands on the Sierra-Nevada border that we spotted a while ago. Last time we had seen no fresh evidence and many of the dams were damaged. The whole visit was so depressing I had thought the fantastic habitat may have finally suffered an end at the hands of a trapper.
Yesterday there was evidence of a wonderful recovery. The dams were fixed and holding snowmelt well, and every three or four feet of thicket was marked by distinct beaver chews. Obviously things are alive and well in the colony, and I couldn’t have been happier.
Sometimes I think these “near misses” happen because trappers come, and don’t get all the family members, and it takes them a while to rebound. Sometimes they might remove a colony and have another move in. Whatever causes the mysterious recovery, I was happy to see it.
I’ll be down checking out our colony tonight. No one’s reported seeing a yearling for a while. I read an article the other day saying the average date of dispersal for a northwest colony was February 19th. I wonder if ours have moved on, but we haven’t got any panicked phone calls yet from folk upriver. I’ll let you know what we see.
