Interesting Article About Beavers

[Tom Rankin]

Can't we all get along?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/science/earth/09beaver.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

 

[TrishandAlex]

Great article -- we drive by the area on Route 2 weekly, on the way to visit friends. We are going to have to schedule detours and stops so that we can perhaps see some beavers!

 

[giggy]

I get along with beavers just fine

 

[leaf]

Mary Hansen, a conservation agent from Maynard, said it starkly: “There are beavers everywhere.”

Are there? I haven't seen any..

Then again.. there's been a dry spell here, obviously the result of no beaver activity.

 

[Tom Rankin]

Mary Hansen, a conservation agent from Maynard, said it starkly: “There are beavers everywhere.”

Are there? I haven't seen any..

Then again.. there's been a dry spell here, obviously the result of no beaver activity.

I saw one in the wild last year for the first time. I certainly see signs of beaver activity in the Catskills.

 

[dentonfabrics]

Mary Hansen, a conservation agent from Maynard, said it starkly: “There are beavers everywhere.”

Are there? I haven't seen any..

Then again.. there's been a dry spell here, obviously the result of no beaver activity.

I agree. Although seeing evidence of beavers (dams, chewed trees, etc.) is evident all over the Whites, actually seeing one is rare, at least in my experience.

 

[Amicus]

I agree. Although seeing evidence of beavers (dams, chewed trees, etc.) is evident all over the Whites, actually seeing one is rare, at least in my experience.

If you own a place on a pond or stream they're redoing, you'll see all of them you want. The best time to seek them out is dusk (or maybe dawn - I seldom paddle that early). Come around a bend into a little pond they inhabit, and you're likely to hear the rifle-crack of a powerful tail slapping the water, as a beaver submerges after alerting his chums.

 

[Nif]

Depends on where you hang out and what you do. Beaver siting are not that uncommon. There are those that don't like them. Think they cause trouble and wreak havoc, but to each their own I guess.

 

[Mark Schaefer]

Thanks for posting the link, Tom. The engineer in me loves these little munchkins, and I feel some affinity towards them. They truly are nature's own engineers.

There is a pair with kits and a sizable pond-side lodge at my neighborhood Esopus Bend Nature Preserve in soggy Saugerties NY. My photos were from last autumn. I still need to get better photos of them. I was on a photo outing there again yesterday. The beavers were inside the lodge as it might have been too warm and sunny. At one point I was making too much noise adjusting my tripod while photographing some water lilies. I was also muttering and losing an argument with myself about the correct exposure. I heard a loud splash but only saw the wave reverbs near the underwater entrance to the lodge. No doubt they were telling me to shut up.

Maybe someone could start a special home for displaced beavers.

Or we could retrain them to do trail work and perhaps put those incisors to more constructive use. Maybe we could get some stimulus funding. No trail maintainer jobs would be lost as there is ample work to be done.

 

[Puck]

Come around a bend into a little pond they inhabit, and you're likely to hear the rifle-crack of a powerful tail slapping the water, as a beaver submerges after alerting his chums.

I was watching some beavers on Nancy Pond. I was well hidden from the trail. They kept slapping the water only to come back up to swim around on the surface. I don't know if they were testing the alarm system or having fun.

 

[DougPaul]

Can't we all get along?

Hmmm... Two species, both of which modify the environment without consulting anyone else.

Doug

 

[Little Rickie]

Can't we all get along?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/science/earth/09beaver.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

"beavers, which can reach 60 pounds"

I'd say with the right barbecue sauce and there wouldn't be much of a problem.

 

[Frodo]

60 lb beaver? Now thats a problem...

I live just a few towns over from Concord and there is no beaver problem in Wilmington that I have heard of. We do have a racoon problem though...

 

[una_dogger]

I've seen them out in Colorado and at Little Rock Pond in Vermont. They are pretty big!
Its amazing the work they can do. I recall backpacking for several miles along a damned river in the La Garita Wilderness. Aspens all along the trail were downed, just thier chewed stumps remained. The beavers had damned the river extensively, and they had left neat little stacks of trees along the way. It was hard to believe that it was the work of animals.

 

[Paradox]

We used to own a house in Holderness NH, right across the street from a 5 acre beaver pond. The exit brook ran through my property. In 1999 there was quite a drought in NH at the same time when my wife despirately wanted a lawn. So a couple times a week I would walk across the road with a miners pick and pull some branches and mud off the top of the dam to let some water out of the dam and into the dry brook. I would walk across the top of the dam to the center and begin pulling off branches and within a minute or so a beaver or two would be appear 50' away and swim back and forth popping its tail(s). I would have to stand there for 5 or 10 minutes to let enough water out of the pond and into the brook which I would pump out and into my sprinklers for the lawn. An hour or so later the flow would be completely stopped and the dam fully repaired. I guess that is why they call them beavers.

At any rate, I'd have to say that they were very useful to me.

 

[peakbagger]

I suspect that the issue with beavers in suburbia is that the normal predators that would eat them are not present in an equal abundance, therefore excess beavers. Not sure what are the normal predators of beavers, but most of the smaller predators present in the suburbs are probably not going to mess with mama and popa beaver.

 

[Paradox]

One of IMAX'es first movies was a documentary on beavers appropriately titled: "Beavers". We watched it on DVD and it is one of the best family movies you will ever find. My son loved it at age 10, and so did my wife and I. Marvelous IMAX photography, about an hour long.

 

[sierra]

I like to make hiking sticks and the best material is a cleaned beaver stick that is submerged in cold mountain water. This has brought me to search for beaver dams all over the Whites and there are many i assure you. In my quest for sticks, Ive met many a beaver up close and find them a peculiar animal. I once approached a den ( within 10 ft) and was chased by a beaver roughly 50 lbs in size, running in 2 ft of water with a beaver on your tail is not really that much fun. Ive refined my search as to not approach a den within 30 ft or so and they dont seem to mind me as much. The tail slapping is both a warning to the intruder and to other beavers that trouble lurks. I find beavers to be one of my favorite animals in the wilds, man the stuff they cut down is incredible. Alot of what they chew is stictly to keep thier teeth in shape and from growing to big.

 

[Stan]

A couple of my favorite hiking sticks ... which I seem to collect and leave in the garage if not at the trailhead ... are custom carved at both ends by beaver. Nice work. And some people can estimate the age of the beaver that did the carving by the size of the teeth marks.

Quite frequently, on trail and on the water, a journey has been altered by the industrious handiwork of beavers. I've been impressed at the sizes of trees they will fell. A memorable display is at the northern end of Tunnel Brook Trail near Moosilauke. The Ispwich Audubon Sanctuary has trails chronically flooded by beaver dams. We were treated to a classic beaver splash announcement at Three Ponds.

Still ... with all my respect and admiration of this critter, I can't help but feel that the clash of civilizations might be resolved with a resurgence in popularity of the 10 X stetson (10 X = 100% beaver).