Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Beavers and Plants

In the past two weeks I've had 6 Beavers removed from our 60 acre lake, since last fall this makes a total of around 10. This spring I have had ZERO damage to any lily pad, pickerel weed or spatterdock plant. I was always blaming the grass carp or turtles. Just FYI...............

I've still got one beaver to go, and he's doing the same thing here. How do I know it's not a muskrat? Muskrats don't try to plug up siphon pipes with uneaten lily stalks that still have their flowers.

Yeah, beavers took out half a dozen of my dogwoods & redbuds we had planted on the island. They also love cattails, but I don't mind that.

Where the heck is it living at during the day??

They will dig a den in the bank with an opining under water. It then collapses in when drove over or if it gets water logged.

I wonder if you guys are calling Muskrats, Beavers. Muskrats really like roots to eat and will dig into the bank to build their den. Beavers will not do that at all. Beavers will build a stick bed and hut.

Beavers will build bank dens also. In my experience, they actually seem to prefer them and only build lodges when banks are too rocky or too flat. Their diet is somewhat dependent on season, similar to most herbivores. Green plant material is typically easier to digest than bark, so this time of year and through the summer their diet consists almost entirely of green plant matter and roots. During the fall when greenery starts to die back they transition to bark and will eat bark from feed beds throughout the winter.

Agree, I’ve seen several bank beaver dens. Actually never seen a stick den.

I almost never see them around here either, very rare. I missed that Dono was in Ontario, a huge part of Ontario is within the shield and is extremely rocky. Probably almost nowhere to build a bank den and less emergent plant material than we have in much of the states. His observations are probably pretty accurate for his area.

I too had beavers living in excavated dens in the bank of my pond, and in addition to felling trees, they dug up a bunch of lily pad rhizomes and used them along with sticks to clog my drain pipe. They needed to tunnel under my pig-panel trash guard to get to the pipe, so they were only able to get a few larger sticks through to the pipe. I had no idea that we had a half dozen beaver until the neighbor trapped them out.

Yes in Ontario here I have never seen a bank Beaver. They must be small. We have beavers that we are lucky if their hide stretches out on a 4X4 sheet of plywood.

Cheers Don.

Donno, I trapped a bank den beaver that weighed 70# one year.....

I had six beavers, including four young, six weeks ago. Gone now. Not trapped, dunno what happened

Frank, seen any gators? The only plus side of having gators that I can see.

No gators yet. Maybe I could get one as I did see one beaver today.😟

If I get a gator for pest control (beavers, cormorants, trespassers), what is the water temperature that causes them to die off in the winter? Is it close to the same range as tilapia?

They don't call white water lilies "beaver root" for nothing. And beaver will definitely mine an earth den. They hollowed out whole island in one of my ponds.