American Beaver

The American Beaver is the largest rodent in North America, with Maine’s beavers averaging 3-4 feet long and 40 pounds. (Though there is a record of a New Hampshire beaver weighing 93 pounds!). 

Clumsy on land, beavers are graceful swimmers and masters of construction, creating complex dam, lodge, and pond systems. Beavers mate for life and produce 1-6 kits each year, depending on food availability.  The young beavers stay with their family until they are two, when they disperse to find a mate and to establish a new colony. 

These nocturnal mammals are purely vegetarian.  Beavers eat aquatic plants and the sticks, twigs, and inner bark of deciduous trees.  Microorganisms in their intestines help them digest all that cellulose. Beavers do not hibernate, but remain mostly hunkered in their lodge all winter, feeding off a supply of previously cached sticks. 

There are signs of beavers throughout the Kezar Lake Watershed and it’s always interesting to visit an active beaver area to see how it changes over time.

 Just like humans, beavers manipulate the landscape to their advantage. The ponds they create provide easy and safe access to their lodge and their vegetative food sources. While some people find the damming of streams and felling of trees to be a nuisance, beavers play an important role in the ecology of the Watershed.  Their created ponds and waterways provide vital wetland environments for insects, fish, birds, and other mammals; and serve as natural filtration systems that improve water quality.