Beaver Hut

Krem and Hirut found a beaver hut and dam in White Clay Creek on November 25th, 2018.  They looked for clues to better learn about the beaver habitat and natural behaviors.

The beaver hut was built along the shore around the base of a tree.  Using the base of the tree allows the beaver to minimize the amount of materials it takes to build a hut,but also means the hut has to be in a less protected location along the edge of the creek or pond.  Notice the many small branches in the water surrounding the hut.  This provides extra protection and prevents predators from easily accessing the hut.  The entrance channel to the hut is on the lower left of the photo.

Here you can better see the entrance channel on the lower left of the photo.

This is a relatively small beaver damn located about 50 yards from the beaver hut.  It is retaining water well to establish a small pond for the beaver.

Here is the downstream side of the beaver damn.  You can see the larger branches were used on the lower portions of the damn to increase structural strength.

Krem found this beaver footprint showing the outline of the web foot with claws on the toes.

This is the largest tree showing bite marks from the beaver that we located.  Most bite marks were found on saplings or very small branches.  All of the clues we located suggest there was a single beaver of adolescent maturity.

Branch cut by beaver.  Also showing 'eating' marks where the bark was stripped for food.

Distinctive 'eating' bite marks where the beaver had stripped the branches for the nutritious bark of the young sapling.

Bite chips.  The size of these chips provide some indication of the size of the beaver.  The larger chips and marks in the tree indicate this is a small to medium beaver.