Beaver - Lures , Baits etc

[Toddy]

The population density of Sweden is around 22/sq Km; in Powys, where I live, it's 27/sq Km - not exactly crowded. Thankfully, most of the UK population is happy to live in large towns or cities

I live in a village, that is expanding like Topsy into every wee nook and cranny of land around but even here, slap bang in the middle of the central belt, our population density is 178/sqKm. I still live surrounded by trees and woodlands though

M

 

[Robson Valley]

Nobody can dig out the beaver here in the winter. Ponds are frozen, the lodge is frozen.
Predators can smell them through the air vent but it's wishful thinking!
A trapper can chop pond ice that the beaver will investigate and get trapped that way.

Where the beaver have blocked culverts to flood the highways/roads and saturate the road beds for landslides,
the trappers do their best. Sometimes dynamite in January is the best bet.

Where I live, there are lots and lots of avalanches in the winter.
I can see they have started, from my kitchen window.
The wolves will dig up dead people from avalanches and eat them.
So there's some urgency (when it's safe) to do the recovery as soon as possible.
You don't need wolves. Turns your hammock into a tamale, yes?

 

[Janne]

I think parts of UK could support some wolves. They would find things to eat ( badgers, maybe foxes? ) and survive or disappear.
Of course they would take the odd chicken and sheep.

I think it is worth it trying. I understand why that escaped lynx had to be killed or captured, as it has lost its ability to survive in the wild being brought up in captivity, but, again, parts of Britain could support a small breeding population.

There is a system of reinbursing farmers in Sweden if they lose animals to wolves I think.

 

[Janne]

The worry about losing animal stock, attack on humans and so on did exist in Sweden too before they did it.

For me it was a huge part of the total Nature experience to observe animals.
I have only seen one wolf in Scandinavia, and only seen bear scat.
Plenty of the others!

It was great fun to observe the beavers. I hope you succeed!

 

[Robson Valley]

I think the experimental reintroduction of Castor fiber will be a success.
Their behaviour doesn't seem to lead them to the wholesale destruction that C. canadensis can display.

I do notice that everybody is very careful to avoid discussing the total destruction of flowing water
ecosystems for stagnant ponds. You'll really like a dose of Giardia parasites.

Wolves here eat a lot of rodents such as voles (the common name for a big mouse with a hairy tail.)
They often hunt during the day along fence lines in grazing leases up higher for the village.
Snow is no obstacle to their extraordinary hearing.

They live and hunt in packs led by the alpha pair. In an encounter, you won't be facing a single one.

 

[mrcharly]

I don't think there will be a total cessation of flowing water systems. The water can't back up indefinitely, it will flood over and around the beaver dams.
We already have issues with parasites in the water, from farm animals (liver fluke, for example). You can't really count on the water in the UK as being 'potable' unless it is filtered. Too many farmed animals about, too many people.

 

[Janne]

Beaver fur is really, really nice!
I bought my son today a very nice beaver fur winter hat, one of those with earflaps.

 

[Broch]

Beaver fur is really, really nice!
I bought my son today a very nice beaver fur winter hat, one of those with earflaps.

I am sorry to say my parents threw away my Grandmother's beaver fur coat years ago; it would have made quite a few winter hats

 

[Robson Valley]

Your beaver species isn't like ours. I can show you beaver dams where you think you've gone for a walk in the forest
and instead, you are on the top edge of ancient earthworks from the beaver.
Of course the water keeps backing up = the dam gets built, higher and higher. They never quit.
Beavers build long successions of dams in single water courses, one pond after another.
Quite a pattern when seen from low-flying aircraft. Unmistakable.

You can forget about driving home on the highway tonight. It has ceased to exist.
The road bed saturated because the beaver plugged the culverts.
The highways crew could not stay ahead of them.
The beaver can block any mesh fence that you think that you can set up to stop them. Wrong.
That piece of highway took off down the rocky slope of that mountain like gravy.
I drive over a bunch of rebuilds and patches, they still make me smile. Impressive damage.

 

[Janne]

You should be happy as one of your beavers now adorns my son’s head.

What do the professional trappets use to attract the animals?

That would be the answer for the question posed in the first post!

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

Generally I use nothing but except sometimes the scent gland or a squeeze from the bladder of female.

 

[Tengu]

Uncontrolled beaver certainly do a lot of damage. like in Tierra del Fuego.

But a few wont hurt, and the European ones are said to be less engineering than the US.

Wasnt the Norfolk Broads created by Beaver?

 

[Mesquite]

Wasnt the Norfolk Broads created by Beaver?

No, they were created by peat extraction during medieval times which were flooded when sea levels rose

 

[Toddy]

There was, it has eroded away now, a wonderful example of a beaver dam in the stratigraphy of a site on the Yorkshire coast. Reckoned to be about 7,000bce. It was really quite astonishing to see, all these huge great flint nodules coming out of the glacial debris silt, and the neat tooth marked pile of sticks of a beaver dam or lodge. No way to tell which now, the area had risen and was part of the coastline that was eroding 5 or 6m a year.

M

 

[SCOMAN]

To go to the OP, find out where the beavers are. If you know the area acquaint yourself with recent fellings or scars, they're very obvious. Once found revisit noting changes to scars to learn where they're active. I haven't sighted them personally but I managed to capture some on a wildlife cam at the start of the week. I posted a humorous video of one on the site but I'm still compiling the video I captured.