The Beaver
Effect
All in an Evening’s Work
A Day in the Life of a Beaver… begins at dusk. While they may not meet your standard definition of a party animal, beavers don’t really get going until later in the day.
Why the late hours?
Some experts believe this happened when their primary threats shifted. Over the last century, due to extermination campaigns, wolves became locally extinct from large swaths of beaver habitat where they once stalked prey by night. Because of this, it is hypothesized that beavers gradually shifted their internal clocks to instead avoid working during peak fur trapping hours.
That being said, beavers don’t exactly synchronize their work with the solar day. They spend a large portion of their time underwater or in their lodge, where levels of light typically remain dim. Without regular cues from the sun, their days can change in length from 26 to 29 hours, but usually begin in the late afternoon.
Snacking and Grooming
An important part of a beaver’s schedule is finding a snack. Their favorites seem to be red alder and willow, but they won’t say no to a conifer either, and can even make pine work in a pinch. However their diet branches off, it remains strictly vegetarian.
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A beaver’s grooming routine takes about 20% of their time. Fortunately, beavers don’t need a comb to detangle because they have two split claws on each hind foot. Using this as a brush keeps their soft fur free from tangles while maintaining its insulating, waterproof properties.
Welcome Home: Beaver Edition
Beavers build lodges as their main home, a two-story stronghold with room for sleeping, food storage, and raising a family. The bottom floor serves as a mud room for beavers incoming from entrances below the surface while the upper floor remains dry, and ready for activities. These homey, insulated structures provide protection from predators and typically stretch 12 – 20 feet across, but can reach widths of up to 40 feet]! At over half a mile long, the largest of their creations can even be seen from space!
Illustration of a typical beaver lodge, complete with underwater tunnel, a place to dry off, food storage, and nursing corner.
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If beavers call lodges home, why do they need dams? It’s similar to a castle with a drawbridge. Beavers build lodges in streams as their home / fortress. Dams extending from the lodge create a deep pond providing protection for entire families of beavers.
Beaver families share the evening’s chore list from maintaining tunnels and plugging holes in the dam to gathering bark and babysitting kits. They mate for life and this can lead to as many as 6 - 12 beavers living in a single lodge at one time. Fortunately, their social structure relies on seniority-based authority – parents are in charge of juveniles, who then take care of their younger siblings — so few conflicts emerge within the family. Once a juvenile beaver becomes old enough, usually by their third spring, they leave the lodge to find a mate and settle down somewhere new.
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Together, beavers spend their days transforming ecosystems until the fateful day comes when their pond becomes too shallow or runs out of enough good vegetation. Once this happens, beavers will leave the site to find a new neighborhood in need of their engineering skills. Without the regular maintenance conducted by beavers, water will eventually break through the dam and flow into the rest of the stream. This process can actually lead to excellent habitat for several wetland species who love the leftover leaves, branches and mud produced by the disintegrating dam.
Whether a beaver family calls one spot home for many years or prefers to move around more often, they certainly leave a positive signature on the many streams, wetlands and meadows
they inhabit.
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