About beavers & the habitats they create for other wildlife

Beavers are effective ecosystem engineers and carpenters who choose to build homes close to their food sources and in proximity to their family group, known as a colony. They are family-oriented mammals who mate for life and have annual baby beavers called kits. Once they are old enough, young beavers help cache food for the winter, maintain dams and lodges, and babysit their younger siblings. Young beavers tend to stay with their family for about two years before striking out on their own. 

In addition to their lodge-building savvy, beavers are vegetarian and eat the nutritious cambium layer (right beneath the bark) of sticks they gather from the surrounding environment. They also eat other plant materials like leaves, grasses, ferns, sedges, water lilies, rushes, and cattails. And, as vegetarians, beaver do not eat fish! 

A common misperception is that beavers create dams to hinder fish movement in a stream. On the contrary, fish and beaver evolved together. Trout and salmon have adapted to jump over or swim around beaver dams. In return for the extra effort, native fish that navigate upstream past dammed waterways benefit from plentiful food and shelter provided by beaver ponds and their diverse habitats. 

Many other species can be found cohabitating in lodges built by beavers; scientists tell of muskrats, voles, mice, and even moths making space for themselves in beaver lodges. Sandhill cranes have even been seen nesting on top of dams. Beaver dams and lodge-building benefit habitat for many wildlife species, including:

• Amphibians such as northern leopard frogs and boreal toads thrive in beaver ponds.
• Deep ponds that don’t freeze provide protected winter habitat for fish.
• In the summer, deep pools provide cool “thermal refuges” for fish, as well as abundant food in the form of aquatic insects like damselflies, mayflies, dragonflies, and caddisflies.
• Birds like Greater Sandhill Crane, Great Blue Heron, Mallards and Common Merganser use the ponds for feeding, nesting, and rearing their young.
• Standing dead trees around the pond provide important perches for hawks, Bald Eagles, and ospreys.
• Belted Kingfishers, Red-winged Blackbirds, Willow Flycatchers, Yellow Warblers, and other birds feast on the aquatic insects hatching from ponds.
• Elk and deer are attracted to the increased forage around beaver ponds.
• Moose browse the aquatic vegetation and woody plants in and around the ponds.
• River otters, mink, racoons and marmots live around the ponds.
• Coyotes, wolves, bears, and bobcats have all been seen crossing sturdy beaver dams.