A few years back on the old man 40, we had a nice little penisula that went out into a swamp (kinda looped around like that hook off of Massachusetts) - with a ton of NICE white oaks, and a few other scrub trees; and a healthy porion of the woods near this pennisula was poplar.
WHY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH, would a beaver walk past a poplar to chew on an OAK. I don't mean 1 or 2 oaks, basically the entire pennisula they leveled.
I don't think they were planning to develop it for townhouses, but come on little buddy - you walk past a delicious poplar and chew on an old oak that smells like PEE.
Possibly because the oak may be a much harder wood and the beaver wants to file down his cutters. I've seen beaver cut on pine knots on a boat dock, leaving the clear planking untouched. Beaver are strange critters, I've never seen them cut on large cypress trees but they will snip off small cypress sprouts I've just set out! >:(
I shot a beaver in the pond behind my house last night that was chewing down his second Red Cedar of the night! Every time it rains they come up the creek and destroy more of my trees. :(
Just funny little story of beaver favorites. There was a beautiful Adirondack Camp built on a small pond a few years ago and before they had the open house for all that worked on it or helped during the project they had it landscaped. The landscaping was completed the day before the big event. I arrived very early to check off a few items before I issued the Certificate of Occupancy and noticed all of the newly planted trees laying on the lawn with no limbs on them. I pointed this out to the owner, he got on the phone and within 2 hours the landscape company was back and replaced the trees. The were all white birch and maple about 3-4" where the beavers cut them off. By the time the open house went off you everything was perfect, except for the hardware cloth protection on all the trees. It worked good until they could walk on the snow. Just a minor hiccup on a 3 million dollar house.
I've disposed of a number of beavers over the years that were chewing on my creosoted RR tie corner fence posts that are down along the river on my farm.
I had them chew on some nice rock maple I left on the creek bank from a thinning. That wasn't good enough for them. They then went up hill into my large tooth grove and flattened them to and hung them all up. There, a pile of 10" aspen lay to waste. Best I could hope for would be one to flatten that fat beaver. They've cut down planted spruce to, when everything else got scarce. :-X >:(
...yeah my dad was very disappointed the first time see saw all the Oaks down, but man did we a great time sawing that summer - and some wonderful firewood for a few years.
Also, my dad did not make out to bad that year trapping! ;)
We have a family woodlot with one large beaver lodge and several beavers every year. I like to go back in the spring and watch them work from the hillside overlooking their pond. My cousin called me once a few years ago saying he was going back to try to trap them all because they were "ruining" all of our trees. I finally managed to talk him out of it when I took him back and showed him that the beavers were chewing and knocking down all of the Large Tooth Aspen and leaving the Yellow Birch and other valuable hardwoods standing!!! I had planned to go through there and do a crop tree release in a few years but the beavers beat me to it. :D :D
Beavers in the river here seem to prefer the Yellow Birch and Hard Maple over the much more abundant aspen and box elder. Friend of mine traps them when he has time, and I shoot them whenever I see em, they are just rats with big teeth and a paddle for a tail.
Sometimes they do a pretty good job to. I have seen a mixed wood stand with aspen and softwood where they cut down all the aspen and left just the softwoods behind. Sometimes the softwood would then be spaced again with brush saws.
I have also been in stands of sugar maple, where the beavers made a dam from springs that run through it and a big beaver house to. They would cut the only thing available, all the sugar maples. >:( There would typically be a large brook nearby lined with mature softwood, but they moved up out of the creek into the young stand of hardwoods. I once thinned a 4 acre patch of cedar near a brook, they flooded that all out and probably 6 more acres. On the old farm dad sold, they flooded 25 acres out, I measured it with GPS.
We're a bit lucky with the beavers on our property. Their dams are at the bottom of a bit of a ravine that runs through the property. There is some nice timber down there but it's to steep to bother going after. We just leave that part of the woodlot alone for the wildlife so the beavers are fine to do as they please. The softwood is thick down there and its sheltered from the wind so the birds, deer and other critters love it during the winter.
Not every piece of land needs a saw run through it. Steel nor buck toothed. ;D
The problem with the beaver in my area is not necessarily the trees they cut, but the land that is flooded behind their dams. A friend of mine had several acres of woodlot flooded and after a few years all the trees were dead. It is a constant battle trapping and blasting dams to prevent flooding. It seems that they can build back overnight.
Here's a link to an article from the local paper concerning beaver dams.
http://poststar.com/news/local/county-takes-aim-at-beaver-dams/article_d467fc4e-c254-11e2-bb97-001a4bcf887a.html
Quote from: wwsjr on March 21, 2014, 05:01:26 PM
The problem with the beaver in my area is not necessarily the trees they cut, but the land that is flooded behind their dams. A friend of mine had several acres of woodlot flooded and after a few years all the trees were dead. It is a constant battle trapping and blasting dams to prevent flooding. It seems that they can build back overnight.
I guess it's time to tell of my invention..again, " beaver dam destroyer" or how I rigged a lake boat to rip out beaver dams. A 16' lake boat, a plow on the bow, a twenty horse out-board, a 10 " push pole...and ready for action! Gathering speed at full throttle, and aiming at center of dam, cut power just before collision so plow dips down and rips gap in beaver dam. Back-off again [pole may be needed to assist] and ram 'er again, then , ride the tidal wave down to the next dam, have fun! :)
Quote from: jwilly3879 on March 21, 2014, 06:16:40 PM
Here's a link to an article from the local paper concerning beaver dams.
http://poststar.com/news/local/county-takes-aim-at-beaver-dams/article_d467fc4e-c254-11e2-bb97-001a4bcf887a.html
That article reminded me of this.
http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/dammed.asp
wwsjr wrote: "It is a constant battle trapping and blasting dams to prevent flooding. It seems that they can build back overnight."
I've been told if you blast a beaver dam they will quickly build it back up. However if you shear it with a bulldozer blade they will not build it back up. I know it worked on a large beaver dam not far from home. Maybe you guy's beavers are a different breed. Gerald
Beavers tried to chew down a 30" DBH butternut I used to collect nuts from. It didn't get the tree but it did girdle and kill it. Canker probably would have killed it eventually anyways, but I've been trapping along that creek ever since to protect what's left (smaller trees). You can trap them out every year, and in the spring and summer new ones move in. Taking out their dams does nothing to control them, they can rebuild them overnight, I've watched them at work while camping in the past.
My understanding on the dams is the sound of flowing water will trigger their dam building instinct. Knock it down, they rebuild it.
They ate down 2 ash trees last night! More gunfire is needed!
A couple of years ago I planted some cow pastures in loblolly for some people that bordered a river. I checked them the following fall to check on survival, and didn't come back for about two years. I was looking at a neighboring tract of land so I figured I'd stop and see how the planted trees were doing in the bottoms along the river. I looked out across there and couldn't see any pines( would be 3 years old with an unbelievable site index). So I walked in the field and the dang beavers had wiped out 7-8 acres of trees. They had waited for them to get about 3 inches in diameter and and whacked them. The only ones left had really thick blackberry growing around them.
I've shot and trapped 100's through the years, but it doesn't do any good if there is a good waterway near by.
Anyone have a source for a killer "beaver hound". These beavers have figured out when I go to bed and that's when they show up. I have snared some in the past but these don't have a slide where I could put a snare.
That is when they are most active is at night.
A former governor of the Hudson's Bay Company used to complain of beavers in his back yard cutting trees at night. ;D