Re: protecting trees
JackL has a good point about your trees. Around this part of the world we protect trees from beaver by wrapping the trunks with wire mesh fencing to about as high as a beaver can stand on hind legs. Choose which good ones to save and leave some saplings and younger trees for their lunch and construction. It amounts to win-win wood lot maintenance.
just make sure it’s not girdling the tre
or you’ll kill it anyway.
Right on that
wrapped loosely and inspected annually.
I’ve got It. it’s brilliant
You just have go out and practice you brace and slap the paddle down around the lodge and stuff.
See when a beaver detects danger he slaps his tail on the water.
A paddle is shaped like a big beaver tail. So if the beavers keep hearing a big beaver slapping his tail.
They will think this a bad neighborhood we better move!
It’s brilliant!
Joking
Maybe, but if you read this thread
– Last Updated: Dec-08-15 2:05 PM EST –
from top to bottom, you won't find a single comment by me stating I wanted the lodge or beaver removed.
To the contrary, I wrote that it would be fun to watch over the winter and the beaver was welcome to dine on my saplings and bushes.
In spite of this, a post was made threatening my life and my home (since removed but I have a screenshot). It was unsettling and made me incredibly sad since Pnet has always been such a happy place to visit.
Words have meaning.
That’s hilarious
Did the state really send a letter like that?
are there aspen
trees around, Beaver enjoy Aspen prob Gum, sassafras ?
Occasionally beavers can be lured from a problem area to a new location. Methods used range from leaving otter, or dog, scat at the old site to spraying almond extract on willows to attract beavers and placing favorite foods (such as fresh poplar branches or apples) at the new site.
Aspen ? pile up a heap f aspen cuttings in your nab’s backyard…beav will walk more than a mile for aromatic aspen
Beav will choose willow over your prize black walnut for obvious reasons
https://www.google.com/#q=what+tree+are+beaver+favorites
remembering Cousteau’s beaver……
yes, legendary and funny case
Thew state claims it sent the letter after discovering that the property owner was rebuilding and fortifying the dams. Then the state claimed onsite eyewitness to rebuilt beaver dams, which it turned out to not actually have.
I’ve filed a few DEQ permits in my state and while the boots-on-the-ground people are usually great, the administrators can be another story.
ugh
– Last Updated: Dec-08-15 3:08 PM EST –
I hope you reported the poster or sender to Brent.
Datakoll makes a good point about aspen and I bet there are some nearby. But it sounds like if you lose a tree or two it won't be the end of the world.
Ever see the beaver dam on Grand Island near Munising? It ran almost the width of the island and it's said that at one time it could be seen from space.
Soe kind of real language issue there
Don’t take it how it sounded Rookie, I know the one you mean. There are some really fundamental problems in using the language there, it was probably supposed to be in fun.
in Jest
Mine was to be funny. I mean you didn’t actually think I though practicing your brace would scare away a beaver? Sorry if not and I saw the post you are worried about it was disturbing if taken wrong but I think it was meant to show the beaver’s point of view. And not so aimed at you as maybe me and other’s that had suggested removal idea’s as you did not and I would hope it was also in jest.
That poster has a different style.
Joe
beaver walk for
miles smelling into a pile of fresh cut aspen…right down the dirt road.
I’ll take you word for it Celia,
as you have much more experience here than I. Not so sure I buy the language thing, as there are clear and concise writings at other forums under the same handle, including a sea kayaking forum.
Joe, when I first read your suggestion about bracing practice I thought it was funny. Then I remembered this story:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/man-attacked-beaver-kayak-trip-rochester-article-1.1835732
Just to reinforce…
what others have said, if you have larger trees you don’t want to lose, you need to protect them as was mentioned with the fencing material. There is no accounting for what beavers will chew down. One moved into the pond by our house one time. Pond is lined with willows, but the first tree the beaver started working on was a shortleaf pine.
At our place oon the Yellowstone River in Montana, the beavers are active all winter, and will chew down huge cottonwoods. They try too fell them so that much of the tree is in the water, so that when there is snow and ice on the ground and covering the water they can feed on the bark of the smaller branches that are underwater. One of them chewed down a cottonwood on our property that we hadn’t protected with the fencing, but if fell away from the river and onto a high woven wire fence that enclosed a paddock of about an acre in size. The whole acre was covered in small cottonwoods and other small trees up to a bout 10 inches in diameter at the base, which had been protected from the beavers by the fence. Since we weren’t there over the winter, we didn’t know this had happened. With the fence down, the beavers were able to get into the paddock, and they mowed down every one of the trees within it.
is why
Montana is treeless.
You need a video camera.
Beaver teeth grow continuously
and they need to gnaw on things to keep them in shape. They will chew in a manner that seems destructive to us keeping teeth in control.
Hardware cloth
Have an old maple near the shore and an old oak a bit further up the north side of the bluff. More trees up on top, but the state land next to me has easier pickings close to the shore. Saplings next to the state fence line, but he’d be doing me a favor by taking those out. Bluff open, covered with periwinkle (it’s like a weed here). Now, if the beaver started to eat that, I’d be mighty ticked off.
Will call a friend to see what he can do with the hardware cloth I have on hand. He can do it ten times faster than I could.
Thanks for the tree protection warnings.
trees
– Last Updated: Dec-10-15 9:06 AM EST –
Yes, probably better safe than sorry, if you have some old trees that you would not want to lose you probably better protect them before the beaver gets around to them. Sounds like there aren't to many so wrapping them shouldn't be a big deal.
Beavers usually go after softwood trees first so your maple could be a prime target. Hardwoods like oaks are less attractive but I have seen oaks cut or girdled by beavers many times. Beavers will eventually cut just about any trees in there habitat, as the preferred species diminish they will start to use less favored trees. About the only trees that beavers will avoid are sycamores and red cedar.
Wrap your trees with fence that is about waist high so beavers cant reach above the top when there is deep snow on the ground.
When we wrapped trees with beaver guards we used recycled chainlink fence. We wrapped extra fence around the tree trunk so we could pull the fence back and rewrap them again after a few years as the trees size increased, (easier said than done after several seasons of vines grew threw them). The chainlink was easy to put up and lasts for ever.
I have not been back to that area for quite a while but as far as I know none of the trees that we wrapped were ever damaged by beavers. When I was there I saw many trees that were cut or girdled and dying right next to wrapped trees.
beavers will also climb suprisingly steep slopes so don't feel safe just because of a high bank.
John R
again - the wrapped trees will die
if the wrapping isn’t loosened as they grow.
I’d keep an eye on the beaver’s behavior before going off the deep end with wrapping, because once you wrap a tree it’s not the end of the work.
And frankly if I had any cottonwood I’d pay a beaver to eat it all.
Observe, enjoy and offer them the maples
Give em’ a chance, if possible. Wildlife gets pressured out of their favorite spots too much and maples have to be the bland ugliest thing ever to grow… Good stuff from others. Agree about trying to protect aspens, birches. Just skimmed over the thread…appropriate water(springs/brooks = coldwater? habitat)…for trout? If all variables positive…they often provide good insect habitat and water for trout…given supply of oxygenated water from some source(s). $.01