Help! We Have Beavers on Our Land. What Should We Do?

Reader Contribution by David Mizejewski

We have many beavers growing and working on our land! How can we understand their “work” and how can we work harmoniously with the beavers. The locals just suggest “trapping them,” which doesn’t suit our style!

Beavers, like humans, alter their habitat to suit their needs. Unlike most human landscape alterations, however, the changes beavers make support ducks, wading birds, amphibians, fish and numerous other wildlife species. Beavers dam streams with branches and mud to create ponds. Ponds provide these semi-aquatic, vegetarian rodents with protection from predators and places to build their lodges. Beavers feed on the bark of trees and use branches and logs to build their dams. You can protect specimen trees from beaver damage by wrapping them with four feet of hardware cloth. You can purchase exclusion devices that prevent beavers from building dams over stream culverts and flooding yards and neighborhoods.

— David Mizejewski, naturalist,National Wildlife Federation

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