Ran across this old pic from before I trapped of my Deutsch Kurzhaar posing for a photo op and I immediately found it interesting that it was a pine tree the beaver felled. This was in a very wide (100 yards across), very slow-moving river that dumped into the mighty Deschutes River. No need for a dam, so I'm thinking it was for it's feed pile or if not that, it was just cutting the tree just because. This area is a predominantly ponderosa and lodgepole forest, with some willows along the river.

I've seen where they have cut cedar down and eaten some of the bark, wonder if it's their method for medicinal purposes.

Some of the chewing that beaver do is to wear down their teeth. But I do see them peel Doug fir and some other conifers on a regular basis. There are some shelter ponderosas that the do-gooders planted along the Willamette near me and in the last few days I have noticed that one 6" diameter pine was taken down and is gone.

Their pretty good a throwing a inside curve.

When I trapped around the Temagami area I noticed the odd beaver colony cutting young white pine.
In the north they will cut spruce to use in the dam or to cap a feedbed,but dont eat the bark.
If the whole feedbed is evergreen,the beaver will likely not last the long winter here.

Last year here on lake cumberland it went to a all time high. During the late winter and early spring the beaver really worked on pine trees. For some reason it seems only to be during the cold temps. Almost every cove that had a beaver family in it the pine trees 6 inch thru and smaller where all laid over or gone completely
I'm talking HUNDREDS of them in every big cove on the main lake.

They chew down cedars here pretty often, and I find it in feed piles, so they must be eating it.

Look around ...not always but a lot of times when the beaver have or as re eating their last of their preferred softwood trees they eat on hardwoods or pine ... usually thats when they abandon the area to find more popple, willows birch etc... eat themselves out ok f house and home . So the saying goes

white17 ate marten once, although I'm sure he prefers beaver or lynx.

I saw where beaver had chewed on oak!

They'll cut and eat whatever they have to if they don't have much choice.

Long time ago trapped some that all they had in the feed pile was Scotch Pine, didn't have enough fat in their tail to fry their ears!

and they get pitch in their fur

They'll migrate or die

I trapped some one fall where they had a feed bed full of corn shocks from a near by large corn field.

Down here they regularly target small loblolly pine seasonally. The month of June for whatever reason they're dropping young pine up to eight inches in diameter. It's actually what got me started chasing flat tails when they got into a stand Dad and I had planted. We figured about 20k got dropped that summer. Between my traps and Dad's 30/06 we took out nearly twenty.

I've noticed them eating pines or cedars in the early spring. I've noticed some spring beavers castors have a sort of turpentine smell as well. Don't know if the two are related, though.

They prefer sweet gum here, but I've seen them take down pines where the were lots of sweet gum. I've picked up the peeled sticks only to have my hands all sticky because it was from a pine that had the bark eaten. I've seen where they eat them here year round, but not so much in the heat of the summer.

Gum makes good peeled sticks most anytime of year. The top three in this area is gum, red maple and privet. Privet really gets hit hard when it gets cold and I often see it as the main species in feed beds. Maple gets hit hardest in spring but gets clipped year round. Squirrels also hit the maple buds in the spring as well.
If available beaver go out of their way to take down crepe myrtle, knock out roses and ornamental japanese maples. Those jobs are easy sales. LOL

Great info guys and educational as always.