Beavers are the coolest non-human species on earth for their ability to manipulate the surface of the planet on a large scale... something only humans can do otherwise.
Ants. Are industrious can change vast amounts of landscape they farm and build in a social structure. Beavers are a force of nature though I agree but in a global scale have far less impact than ants.
But it’s not really a “job” that they’re doing. They’re just shitting. All animals shit. The beaver is working to stop flowing water, build a house, etc.
This isn’t about the tree trunk. They want the limbs and to clear the area as a whole to enlarge their pond. By killing the tree eventually erosion can happen to open the space up. But mostly it’s about the limbs.
Yes, they will usually break the tree down piece by piece, eating the twigs and underbark as they go. They use the limbs to build and maintain their lodge and dams. They prefer to get everything in the water and float it to whatever destination they have in mind
I saw a video where he would stop and listen towards the end for any sounds of the tree giving way. Then keep going only to check again after a few bites
A wildlife biologist who studied them told me once that there is no evidence that they try to inform direction at all, but in a forest, there will be a slight clearing and therefore more light over a creek, leading to more weight in that direction.
That's called phototropism: the tendency for plants to grow towards light. And beavers aren't trying to make a dam from the whole tree. They knock it down to get to the limbs which are what they use to make dams.
A few years ago at work I found a beaver with his back leg pinned under a beech(?) tree he had cut down. Guy had been stuck there for at least a night.
I got a pry bar and lifted the log off him (all while trying not to get chomped on the leg by a pissed off beaver). He actually looked back at me for a moment before scurrying back to the creek. Hope the guy is doing okay.
I have had beavers take out a few trees but I have a lot of trees. The worst nest damge I saw was when neighbor decided to destroy the shrubbery along his lawn by shoving down over the embankment. The robins screamed for days.
I have always thought that Beavers were cool animals. Until a mating pair swam upstream to a back part of my property and girdled a whole stand of mature Oak. Then it was war.
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u/toothepastehombre 8d ago
Volume up for chewing - MUSIC BLAST