Beavers Repairing and Reinforcing Lodges and Dams
Late October and early November is the busiest time of year for beavers. Their entire winter’s food supply must be cut, gathered, transported and piled next to their lodge so that they will have access to it under the ice. Mud, sticks, wads of grass and stones are collected to reinforce the lodge’s thick walls against the cold as well as coyotes and other predators. And dams, the structures which create ponds, must be patched and strengthened to withstand the rigors of winter.
The importance of maintaining a dam in good condition cannot be overstated, for without it, the pond would cease to exist, and no pond means no beavers. As Dietland Muller-Schwarze and Lixing Sun state in the Beaver, a beaver pond is a “highway, canal, escape route, hiding place, vegetable garden, food storage facility, refrigerator/freezer, water storage tank, bathtub, swimming pool and water toilet.” (They defecate only in water.)
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Beaver Scat Anomaly
Finding an animal’s scat is usually pretty straight forward. The shape, size and contents (in this case egg-shaped, one-inch pellets of wood fibers resembling sawdust) of scat tells you who likely deposited it. But the location and amount of this beaver’s scat is highly unusual.
This pile was discovered on a road that passes between two large bodies of water. While beavers are commonplace here, finding their scat on dry land is an anomaly. Beavers are known to defecate only in water.
Often you will find beaver scat where they have been working, such as in the water right below a dam, but usually there are only a handful of pellets, if that —nowhere near the amount in this photograph. One can only wonder what might have caused this unusual deposit. (Photo by Jody Crosby)
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