Beavers and beaver ponds

Signs they are here

• Stumps chewed to a point, with fresh chips around them
• Peeled sticks floating at the water's edge
• A dam of sticks and mud across a brook
• A lodge, a dome of sticks and mud, out in the pond or on the bank
• Slides of flattened mud where they go in and out of the water
• A loud slap on the water at dusk. That is a tail, warning the others.

How

1. Expect trails and old roads on your map to be under water where beavers have moved in.
2. Walk around a beaver pond rather than across the dam. Dams are slick and can give way under you.
3. Look below the dam for the outlet brook if you want moving water.
4. Treat every drop of water from a beaver pond before you drink it, however clear it looks. See Making water safe.
5. Give a swimming beaver room in a canoe. It will slap and dive.
6. Use what a pond gives: flat water to paddle, trout in the deep holes, and dry standing dead wood around the old edges.

Do and don't

Watch for

Notes

Beavers are the biggest rodent in North America and they reshape whole valleys. A new dam can flood a trail, a woods road or a cabin path in one season.

Old beaver meadows, where a pond has drained and grown in with grass, make for open walking and are good places to see moose.