Project: One photo a day (but not necessarily every day)

[j44ke]

Jorn, this has probably come up before, but I don't remember the answer:

Are beavers active in your area, and if so, do you have any on your land? That would be neat.

About 7 years ago now, local history* says that someone came through the area and trapped all the beavers in the town. Friends remember it as an over-night operation. One morning they woke up, and the beavers on their pond were gone.

Our property has a large wetland on its southeast edge where the stream in the photo begins. A beaver family of about 7 or 8 individuals (according to a neighbor) is one of the groups that disappeared during the trapping event. Those beavers built a very large house which has since subsided, and a dam that is about 150' long in a big arc across the corner of the wetlands that drains into the stream. The dam is impressive and supports plenty of weight, including the deer who use it as a short cut from our neighbor's property to ours. I've tried putting a game camera on it, but it is too covered with alders now to get any sort of clear line of sight.

However, in December, this showed up on the game camera placed about where the photo above was taken.

https://flic.kr/p/2pnz2Zn

We've since found pruned alder and birch stems and a couple piles of beaver poop and new sticks on the dam, so we're hopeful they are coming back. Would be a nice return to the ecosystem.

* I've since learned from the local biologists that beavers will up and move from an area if food sources decrease or if threats increase. So maybe it was trapping or maybe it was lack of willows and birches and other things beavers depend on for sustenance. Or maybe a combination. Beavers are not beloved by many people. They cut down trees and flood fields, along with being just generally obsessive compulsive dam builders and wood chewers. One of the books I have on my iPad is Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America. I'm looking forward to reading it.