By: Henry 2006-2007 The North American beaver is also called the Castor Canadensis, it is a big...

By: Henry

2006-2007

The North American beaver is also called the Castor Canadensis, it is a big web-footed, semi-aquatic rodent, it has brown fur with a wide, dark tail. Beavers can only be found in North America and Northern Europe, before they were wide spread and there are less now because they were hunted for their valuable fur. It lives up to 20 years in the wild, and is an official emblem of Canada since 1975.

Beavers live close to streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes. Beavers are one of the few animals that change the environment in a big way, so they have plenty of space for living and protection. Beavers build dams which change the course of the stream and that makes a pond. Beavers build their lodges and dams with bark, sticks, logs, and mud (from deciduous trees that fell themselves). When there are pointed tree stumps, it shows there is a beaver living nearby.

To build a lodge Beavers first have to build a dam in a stream, this will flood the area of woods and it will make a pond so that the beaver can build its lodge.The dam is about three metres high. The lodge or den is built somewhere away from land, it also has an underwater entrance. The underwater entrance makes hard for enemies to get inside the den. In the Winter the water surrounding the lodge is usually frozen, the ice makes it so that the beaver is almost completely protected. The beaver cuts down an average of 216 trees a year, and can cut down a tree with thirty centimetres in diameter one night.

Every beaver pond has one beaver family with two adults and sometimes 2-4 kits and the kits from last years litter. When there is no more food around the lodge the beavers move to another place and start again.

The mating season for the beavers is in January or February. In early Spring the kits are born (April to June).When they reach their second summer they get adult duties, like maintaining and building the lodge and the dam. The beavers reach adulthood in their second winter and then they move away and find a mate and build their own lodge and dam.

Baby beaver

The average weight of the beaver is 35 pounds, the size of the beaver depends on how much food is available, it can weigh up to 80 pounds. It is about 41-46 inches long, the tail is about 10-16 inches long is 5-6 inches wide, when it’s slapped on the water it will make a warning sound.

Pond weeds

Water lilies

Cattails

Cambium Leaves Apple

Beavers are herbivores that eat aquatic plants such as pond weeds, water-lilies, cattails, leaves, apples, crops, and they also eat the cambium of the alder, cottonwood, willow, aspen, and birch tree.

Foxes, coyotes, wolves, lynxes, otters, weasels, hawks, eagles and owls prey on beavers.

Fox

Coyote

Wolf

Lynx

Otter

Weasel

HawkOwl

Eagle

While the beaver is swimming the tail is used as a rudder and it’s also used as a lever it’s dragging a log, it also helps the beaver the stand upright, the tail helps make a warning when it slaps it in the water. The fingers of the beaver has long claws and webbed feet. Beavers have a large, wide head, the claws and teeth are renewable self-sharpening and enamelled.

Beavers have twenty teeth, four in front for gnawing and sixteen for chewing. The beaver’s teeth are strong, enamelled and self-sharpening and are used to cut through wood, and their incisors never stop growing. They have molars that are perfect for mashing and grinding bark and twigs.

Some Beavers live near rivers and don’t need to build a dam. Instead the beavers live in burrows which is built on the bank of the river, they are called mountain beavers, they can be found in the Pacific coastal region. They usually live near small streams. They like sword fern, bracken fern, salmonberry, huckleberry, salal, and Oregon grape.

Credits

http://icwdm.org/handbook/rodents/MountainBeaver.asp

http://www.worldbook.com/wb/worldbook/cybercamp/html/walkbeav.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/reallywild/amazing/beaver.shtml

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/mammals/Beaver.shtml

http://www.beaversww.org/beaver.html

http://www.beavers-beavers.com/beavers-reproduction.htm

http://www.beavers-beavers.com/

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