Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Beaver and Leaking Pond

I have a stocked one-acre pond that is 2 ½ years old, no dam just a one-acre hole in the ground. The pond sealed itself two years ago and has held water just fine, for no apparent reason the pond has started leaking at the rate of about 2” every three days, this has been going on for six weeks now, at this rate I will lose my fish in 6-8 weeks. I’ve been pulling my hair out trying to figure out why it’s leaking and yesterday while walking around the pond looking for clues I seen what looked like a baby beaver swimming across the pond and disappearing in a clump of cat tails. Could the beaver be my culprit?

Could it possibly be a muskrat? I know that unless you see the tail, they can look a lot alike.

I think whatever it is has to be the problem. It may have dug a den into the bank and hit a sandy strata that is draining the body of water. It may be a small pocket that will eventually saturate or?

I don't know anything about beavers breeding habits or times. Call the local Game Warden or someone to find out about when they do have babies to identify it. It just might be a muskrat. They are smaller than beavers but I doubt that it makes a lot of difference to you. If beavers, you should see plenty of evidence of felled trees. In any case, I would eliminate it/them.

It’s muskrats, we set 10 traps last night and the damage to the pond is worse than we expected. Will try and get some pics of the damage and the traps today.