Beaver Facts

 

“Clever and gentle, the builder of our lakes and Rivers, the one who maintains our wilderness” – Audrey Toruney

 

Characteristics:

• Beavers have an elaborate social grouping, where family is the basic unit, and the female is the central figure. With a well developed social hierarchy, communication between members is highly evolved.
• The life expectancy is about 7-8 years in the wild and 12-14 years in captivity.
• The beaver never stops growing its entire life. The largest beaver ever recorded was 110 lbs.
• Their front teeth (bright orange in colour) also grow continually. The constant gnawing on wood wears their teeth and this prevents them from growing too long.
• Beavers mate for life, the courtship takes place during January and February and the kits arrive between late April and late June. The kits are born fully furred and with their eyes open.
• Maturity is reached at the age of 2. Then the kits are ready to leave the lodge, the females build a lodge on the same lake as the parents forming a colony, while the male kits will wander in search of a suitable mate.

Habitat:

• Beavers are the largest rodents in North America. Found throughout North America from the Mexican boundary to Alaska.
• Beavers live in slow flowing streams, lakes, rivers and marshes, generally within forested regions but they have been found occasionally in streams on the prairies.
• The lodge and dams are built of sticks and mud. Inside is a dry platform, above water level, where they eat and sleep. The entrance is an underwater tunnel that comes up through the lowest edge of the lodge.
• Their architectural skills creates wetlands, ponds, and lakes that provide habitat for all wildlife, birds and insects.

Diet:

• The diet of a beaver in the spring consists of grasses, dandelion greens and water plants. In the summer and fall their diet consists mostly of aspen and willow with the occasional cattail or water lily root.
• During the winter, beavers feed on a food stored under water, consisting of an intricate web of willow and aspen (poplar) branches giving them a steady supply of nutrients under the ice until spring.

Native Notes:
“Beaver is the “worker bee” or carpenter of the animal kingdom. Beaver Medicine includes a strong sense of family and home. Beaver also leaves itself plenty of escape routes from its home, which is a lesson that teaches us not to paint ourselves into corners".