I was checking traps this morning along a creek that runs year round. It is no more than a foot wide and runs for 12-15 miles off the mountain til it disappears below the gravel. There is a vast expanse of desert with no connecting habitat for the beavers to travel, yet there is obvious beaver sign, as well as a beaver den. I found this very interesting, and wonder what would possess a beaver to travel across 20 miles of sage brush and tumble weeds to make a home in a tiny dribbling creek.

I’ve heard the older ones that don’t want to compete often find isolated places to live. I have seen them in places that did not seem appealing to most other beavers. There was a vast plain in the UP that had a beaver hut in the middle of nowhere kind of like that. They move into stock dams often here in SD it’s kind of crazy.

Be more then happy to look on my way down

Got to get to Navaho County in 5 (weeks


Jim Morrison said it best ⁹

Bum ta bumm du dummmm

Ask the guy in Iowa that sees them 5 miles from water.

Ya want to think like a beaver,,,,,,,, give it up, once they are smart.

Smartest animal you will ever encounter

1

I've got a bunch of Oregon game commission reports that cover the beaver transplanting years in Oregon (1938-1949). Beaver were marked with ear tags so that they could keep track of their movements post-transplant. In later years some were discovered to have traveled as much as 50 miles.

BTW, I'm sure that beaver can smell water from a long ways away.

when was the last tag recorded

That's coolBP

Once they’re established, in some areas it can be dangerous to travel too far for food. But I guess if it’s a survival thing, they’ll look for a spot or die trying. This is more of a wolf story…
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2023.1377?utm_source=tbnewswatch.com&utm_campaign=tbnewswatch.com%3A%20outbound&utm_medium=referral

Beavers leave good beaver habitat all the time-and create their own beaver habitat where there was none before they got there.

Will they walk across 20 miles of bone dry high desert scrub to get there?

I have seen beaver far from water,but not 20 miles from water because you could never go even 2 miles here without having to traverse water.

How long have beavers been on earth? Most of them live in a small area their entire life. Two year olds get pushed out and set up their home nearby. Predators are everywhere to tring to kill them, including us.
If All beavers followed that pattern for how many ever years they have been on the planet, thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of years, acted as homebodies, they would likely to have become extinct. Some of them go to extremes in terms of how far they will travel. That would likely explain one of the reasons why they have not been wiped out.

Not quite sure I understand the question. During the transplant years all beaver received an ear tag. Some years later if a beaver was trapped and the trapper turned in the tag it could be determined where the beaver's original transplant site was and later where/when it was harvested.

When the beaver weren't satisfied with their area they just moved on. Sometimes for great distances.

If you mean how old did a tagged beaver live to be I think it was 15 years if I remember right.

I would think it’s not impossible. Or they could stay where they are and die?

15 years sounds about right for longevity, was the same in Manitoba when they left an area untouched from trapping.
I have found them travelling in the dead of winter across frozen crop waste land for 8 miles looking for water to get back into.......once it found some spilled pig manure fluid....man that poor beaver let a lot of detritus go.(beaver have to pass solids in the water)

Full grown beavers dont have too many predators that can take them on.
Here only wolf and bears can kill large beaver with no problems.Lynx kill younger beaver and I would bet most of the beaver taken by wolves and bears are smaller beaver also.
Not sure what predators are in your area but coyote.one on one would not have an easy go of it against a big beaver

Lots of mountain lions. They say no wolves here but I've seen tracks that say otherwise. I would think a beaver would be easy prey outside of water. Of course it's not impossible for a beaver to roam miles in search of habitat. I just found it odd that a steep graded tiny creek isolated by desert would have a beaver living there. I would never even have noticed had I not started trapping. It's keeping a very low profile, or it's been eaten already.

It is odd 2bit. It probably doesn't happen often.

Speaking of predators, I've had a few conversations with Vanessa Petro who does beaver research and some transplanting into the Oregon coast range. If I recall correctly about 80% of transplanted beavers get yummed up these days. Mostly by long tails. Back in the early transplant years there weren't very many cougars around which certainly helped in the high success rate they had.

Maybe the beaver has always been there rather than migrating into the area.




I have watched an adult otter kill an adult beaver in the water. It was so quick and easy that I have to believe it happens more often than we would think.

Otter= translation+=+ water wolves