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Beaver Food and Feeding Habits — 10 Comments

  1. Janet your article was interesting and informative. The beaver ponds I camera trap in north central Massachusetts are representative of your findings. I to thought that beavers consumed white pine saplings out of desperation and that it would only be a matter of time before they moved on to greener pastures. Not the case at all, these beavers have been in the same area for years.

    • Yep. It puzzled me for years until I took the time to read in detail about their diet over a wide range of habitats. Have you seen them hang on for a long time with hemlock as their major woody food? So far from what I’ve seen, hemlock consumption really is desperation.

  2. Thanks for sharing your findings Janet. We have a beaver meadow and currently 2 beaver ponds with active lodges on our land, which have provided amazing opportunities to observe their behaviors. Interestingly the main conifer surrounding the active ponds is hemlock. As for hardwoods, it’s slim pickings for species around the ponds (they are preferring yellow and black birch and willow, then cherry and beech, disinterested in red maple…no other hardwoods surrounding those ponds). They are taking down and eating hemlock, but leaving more than they’re eating. We’ve been curious as to how long they will stick around before they move on as we’ve assumed that it’s going to be a matter of time. We are waiting for the beaver meadow to “grow up” a bit and assume they will rebuild a dam there eventually as there is a wider range of tree species in and around it. There’s more to share with you about the unfolding story here, maybe sometime in person…

    • So interesting, Kathy. It sounds like they have a nice variety of hardwoods, but are you saying there are very few of each species left? Do they have much pond vegetation or other forbs? I have seen them take a lot of young red maple in certain areas, but by most accounts it’s one of the less desirable hardwoods. Perhaps if the only red maples are big old trees, they wouldn’t be interested. The cutting of hemlock in the presence of hardwoods is interesting. It could be desperation, but it might also benefit them in the long run, by opening up the canopy so that more sun loving hardwoods like willows and birches can grow.

  3. Janet, I thought I knew a lot about beaver eating habits, but your article showed me to be lacking a lot of knowledge. I really enjoy your videos and well researched articles. Thank you.
    C. Diane

    • Ha. I thought I knew a lot about them, too, but their lack of enthusiasm for the aspen forced me to research more carefully. We never stop learning. I’m glad you enjoy this blog.

  4. Thanks for this timely article, Janet. On Friday, our tracking group came across several young hemlocks which had recently been downed by beavers. All of the smaller branches had been chewed off and dragged into the pond, and much of the bark had been chewed off of the remaining trunk. Although the beavers have eaten a lot of the birches and other hardwoods around this pond, there are still some hardwoods left (a few yellow birches, beech, oak, red maple, and others, of various age classes, along with white pine, abundant pond lilies and other emergent vegetation). We spent some time pondering why the beavers would be eating hemlock when “better” choices were available. Just last week, at another site, we saw a beaver swimming with a load of greenery (cattails or Phragmites)and wondered the same thing. I have photos of both, if you’re interested. Mother nature never stops teaching us something new.

    • Thanks for sharing that, Linda. Those are exactly the kinds of observations my fellow trackers and I have puzzled over. Maybe it’s partly because most sources give an oversimplified summary of beaver feeding habits, as if there’s a strict hierarchy to their preferences, when in fact they like a varied diet (“choosy generalists”)….And partly because their sign on trees is so obvious and dramatic that we think of trees as their food and forget about the importance of non-woody plants and mast.

  5. I would love to know why a beaver came across a pasture and a paved road or possibly
    across our hayfield to our front porch last year, to eat choke cherries on the front
    porch! I heard some noise on the porch, opened the front door and there was this
    rather large black blob, nosing about eating the berries that had fallen from the
    choke cherry! The nearest pond is either across a paved road and a pasture or from our own very small, shallow pond through a hayfield and onto the cement porch! It looked healthy, and made low little “chatter” noises as it ate the berries. No fear of me, it gobbled the berries I found elsewhere on the porch. Such a cute and lovely animal! I hope I see it again.

    • Hi! So sorry for the delay but my computer was out of service for awhile.

      That is unusual indeed! I wonder if the beaver had been rehabbed, and got used to people. I personally have never known a wild beaver to be unwary of people.

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