WNJ Exclusive: The extraordinary story of the American beaver in New Jersey
All photos by David Wheeler
by David Wheeler
Little more than a month after first discovering the beavers' construction site, I return to find at least a dozen new freshly cut trees in the area. The total whittled tree stumps have grown from 26 to at least 48!
The beaver was staking its claim prominently, and this was one fascinating neighbor I had to learn more about.
Of course, that starts with the trees. Many of the downed trees remain near the beaver stumps, with one even carved on each end, resembling a primitive spear or stake. Others have been dragged into the Bound Brook and guided downstream by the beavers. Beavers are powerful swimmers, using their large webbed feet and tennis racket-like tails as rudders to swim as fast as five miles an hour. Transparent eyelids serve as goggles, while their waterproof and naturally oily fur enables beavers to remain underwater for up to 15 minutes at a time. On dry land, they are somewhat awkward, sticking close to the water. This is a species clearly at home in the water.
“In water, beaver are very adept and will travel great distances,” says Laura Newgard, a field biologist with EcolSciences, Inc., who lives near a small lake in Sussex County. “However, on land they are awkward, so they generally do not travel far from the water. What makes them so smart is they know how to raise water levels so that they can get into more inaccessible areas.”
Unlike many other mammals (and to a lesser degree, many humans), winter is no time for hibernation for the beaver. It's fascinating that these creatures can continue their survival activities under the ice, as if in a parallel universe. Under the ice, beavers swim and forage and, best of all, they harvest their own stockpiling of food.
Throughout the fall, beavers prepared for winter by building up their cache of cut tree shoots, branches, roots, bark, and woody plants, then remarkably sticking those branches into the pond or stream bottom to survive on all winter long. The beavers essentially build their own refrigerators, then dine like kings under the ice all winter.
“Beavers have preferences on tree species they like to eat. A beaver trapper told me that ‘aspen’ is like candy to a beaver. They also like birch and maple. But I have seen them cut anything from the smallest blueberry bush to the largest oak tree,” says Newgard.
Chewing such hard materials might seem to be harmful in the long-term for beavers' teeth, yet orange enamel protects their teeth, which never stop growing, from becoming worn down over the years.
Clearly they are thriving here in this 1,240-acre suburban oasis, though it is difficult to discern whether this is the work of a single family or far more beavers. Beavers mate as monogamous couples, then often live in lodges as extended families with three or four young kits, in addition to the yearlings from the previous spring.
“Beavers are very territorial,” says Newgard. “Both adults will work on the dam and I suppose the young may assist, but usually as they mature, they leave to set up their own territories.”
Across New Jersey, beaver sightings are on the rise. State regulations prohibit trapping and relocating nuisance beavers. After all, that merely results in the beavers moving into someone else’s backyard waterway.
Prior to 2001, beavers hadn’t been spotted in Middlesex County for nearly 50 years. And it may have been another century earlier when the last beaver colony was eradicated from this highly developed area. Yet they had returned to the Dismal Swamp by early 2001, as their unmistakable cut tree stumps demonstrated.
Ah, the trees.
In a densely populated state like New Jersey, where every last parcel of open space is precious, it would seem destructive to lose so many young trees near the headwaters of a suburban stream. Yet the beavers appear to have planned even for that concern. Their tree felling allows sunlight to reach the water, helping plants, algae and invertebrates to thrive. This conversion of sunlight into life serves as the ground floor of the food chain.
In fact, biodiversity in beaver ponds has been found to be many times more productive than farmland. Even the dead tree snags, which are left behind when a new beaver dam first floods land that had previously been dry, offer necessary habitat for birds like woodpeckers, great blue herons, and swallows.
Building the dams and lodges is what we humans think of, first, however. And the beaver’s rate of building would impress any professional engineer.
For ecologist Scott Quitel, cutting down trees and building dams is the easiest part of what beavers do.
“Beavers are more than just engineers – they are planners and architects.”
Indeed, considering their obstacles, the beavers' masterful engineering and ability to change the habitat to suit their needs is mind-boggling.
Newgard has seen this first-hand.
“Our current beaver has built his lodge incorporating my neighbor’s floating dock, and overturned rowboat. My neighbor has removed the lodge three times and relocated the rowboat – and the beaver is rebuilding again.”
Additional information was gathered from NationalGeographic.com and BeaverSolutions.com.
David Wheeler's book, “Wild New Jersey: Nature Adventures in the Garden State,”will be published on February 1, 2011 by Rutgers University Press. More information on the book can be found at WildNewJerseyBook.tv.
Related Stories:
- WNJ Swamp Sightings: Beavers hard at work along stream in Edison
- WNJ Exclusive: Beaver and turtles on Sierra Club eco-tour of Dismal Swamp with WildNewJersey.tv
- The New York Times: Our Towns; Missing: Lodgers With Big Teeth
- WNJ Exclusive: Lark and Lincoln's sparrows among sparrow extravaganza in Dismal Swamp
- Montclair State University: Google Earth finds longest beaver dam in the world
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Posted by WILDNEWJERSEY at 1/6/2011 7:00 AM 
Categories: WNJ Exclusives, Dismal Swamp
Tags: beaver dam ecolsciences sussex county bound brook middlesex county Dismal Swamp
Categories: WNJ Exclusives, Dismal Swamp
Tags: beaver dam ecolsciences sussex county bound brook middlesex county Dismal Swamp
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