Honestly a beavers entire deal is pretty impressive. How they’ll bite through a tree just enough so they can run off before it falls, how they’ll build things even if they’re chilling in someone’s house. Just weird little lumberjacks.
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Back when I was editor/sole writer for a newspaper in central MN, whenever there was a power outage I had to call the local power company to find out the cause. I guarantee you, 90% of the time it was beavers who chewed through a tree that then fell onto the lines.
I work in a nature center and have a female beaver under my care. Every night she slams her big ass up against the fence so we can dig our nails into her fur and scratch. She nips her front paw and the back leg starts wheeling like a dog when you hit the sweet spot
They’re good engineers, too. At a place in Ontario called Six Mile Lake, a very old beaver dam has created a massive difference in elevation from one pond to another. It’s amazing to stand on this piece of built land and look from one level to the next.
Do Beavers have the innate desire to Dam.. Is it a learned ability. How do they learn it. How do they train it. Why do they do it. Are there beavers that do other forms of infrastructure. Do beavers make doors. How well do they mix concrete. Can i hire them to redo my bedroom.
Also if they are so social that if they get left alone they die. That’s how orphaned babies end in wildlife rehabilitator’s homes building hallways dams. https://youtu.be/-ImdlZtOU80?si=ub5gtXyndpb2sG16
Dismantling (by hand) a beaver dam is a massive amount of work. I had to spend a whole winter in concert with a beaver whose flooded area threatened a human dam upstream. Hilarious.
I also learned you can just toss their old sticks aside, they will not reuse them, even if they're one day old
There’s a place where I canoe and the maps are all wrong for one area because some beavers built a damn and it’s turned a portage two lakes away into a nice creek. All the shoreline trees the whole way along are now at the water and it’s years and years of easy lumber for them.
I made up a silly math problem for my first graders this week. In involved about 15 beavers making a dam. 9 got tired and went home. How many beavers are left?
Joke was on them. They didn't realize the 9 that went home received handouts from Biden!
They're triggered by the sound of running water, which drives them to dam that water up which creates ecosystems that can support WAY MORE life than otherwise would be possible without them.
Beavers have built a dam across a stream that runs thru the Gettysburg battlefield flooding the iconic Valley of Death. The NPS refuses to do anything about it because…nature, y’know. I’m dismayed because I love that battlefield but I also think it’s kind of hilarious.
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I also learned you can just toss their old sticks aside, they will not reuse them, even if they're one day old
Joke was on them. They didn't realize the 9 that went home received handouts from Biden!
Incredible little animals.