So a customer told me there is a Facebook page dedicated to beaver management. Of course I checked it out, and it is basically a page dominated by animal rights clowns. I guess I should know better, because I don’t do much on FB other than marketplace for old chainsaws to tinker with, but I have commented a few times on this page. Yesterday they were saying that if the adults in a colony are removed or die of predation in the fall, the young from that previous spring will not survive. Now I suppose in some regions that might be possible, but here in northern IN I know for a fact that the kits from previous spring can and will survive if the adults are killed in fall or winter. You would have thought I told them the sun rises in the west… they told me they have degrees and work with rehabbers and blah blah blah, told me working with beavers every day does not make me an expert and on and on. I told them I have direct observation and video proof of this. They called me a liar.
Curious, what are others’ experiences from around the country? Do spring born 6 month old kits survive if the adults are trapped or die? I mean I know for a fact they do around here, but maybe it is different other places?

And one other thing - this customer who told me about this page had a lot of questions and almost did not hire me because the clowns on this FB page told them there is never a need for lethal beaver control - I was able to answer the questions and give real world examples and reasons why that is not true, and they are currently under contract to keep their land from flooding and to stop the considerable timber damage. But I started thinking about how misleading this FB group is - they call themselves “Beaver Management Forum” and then they openly state that they are trying to change the perception of beaver management to strictly non-lethal and coexistence. And when backed into a corner they say people just should not live anywhere that beavers can impact. So I decided to create another FB group called “Beaver Management Information and Resources”. It has no members currently, and I am on the fence about even keeping it up, but my idea was to give more reasonable and practical information and resources to people like my customer who found all of this misinformation on what is supposed to be a beaver management forum. Wondering if anyone here has thoughts about that. I am not a FB fan, but the reality seems to be that people are going there for guidance about handling beaver conflicts, and the current group is a source of misinformation and AR propaganda.

So maybe this should have been two posts, but I have two questions:
1. Do spring born beavers survive in your region if the adults die in fall winter of that year?
2. Might real beaver management professionals benefit from a page that has a more realistic and reasonable approach, and that gives people doing “research” (using that term loosely) access to good information and resources for solving beaver problems?

As to #2..best counter to bad information is better information.

I’ll let the pros lift a leg on #1, but I’ll drop a deuce on #2….
There’s Beaver Trappers Tips Forum on FB. There’s a lot of experience in that group. Just like any other group, after a few posts, you can tell who knows their #2…..lol.

Here beaver will chew out the breather hole of their house in late winter when the feed is all gone.This happens every few years when we have a cold winter low snow conditions,and a long winter.Some years they get locked in before they have enough feed put up.These beaver are starving and I trap them out when I find them since wolves take many when this situation occurs.They are skin and bones.
Now when you take 2 or three beaver out of a colony after freeze up,the remaining beaver will have more than enough feed to get them thru the winter even if it is a long harsh winter.
This is beaver management.Trappers that consistently maintain substantial beaver quots year after year are invariably skilled predator managers also.
Even with no trapping the small beaver are the first to get predated on in fall by lynx and wolves here and are likely easy pickins for coyotes and bobcats down your way.
You cannot manage your beaver effectively here unless you also manage your wolves.

Im thinking more about a group for people looking for help with beaver problems and information about beavers in general. Dont get me wrong, I will always listen to tips and use whatever helps me, but in this case what brought my attention to it was a customer who had found the page while trying to figure out how they were going to deal with a beaver problem. And this page told them to either use non lethal methods or move to a place where beavers wont be a problem. I am paraphrasing of course, but that is the general idea.

No wolves or lynx here and bobcats are rare in northeast IN, although they are common in southern IN.

So my question remains - if the parents - or for the sake of discussion lets say all the adults and 2-3 year olds - all except the youngest that were born the previous spring - if all the other beavers die for whatever reason, can those 6 month old beavers survive on their own if no people or animal predators kill them?

At 6 months old I’d think they’d be fine on their own, they come out of mom pre programmed to do their thing. But most wild places will have some sort of predators, land, air & aquatic.
They can use a clam trap to live catch ‘em, but do they mention on that page that quite often they can’t be legally relocated? That can be a fraud game there too……story time.
Back in the 80s, there was these 2 French guys from St Pierre Manitoba who cage trapped a couple coon for some hippies near town, they wanted them gone but not killed. They took them home, kept them fed and friendly, the coons eventually learning that the cages held food. They then went around town putting up posters saying “Coon Problems, Call Us,” a week or 2 later they released the coons in town and low & behold their phone rang. Charging $50 a coon so $100 a job they made quite a bit of cash over the summer, then harvested the fat buggers for the fur……..Doing the same with beaver could be profitable…..lol

Question is: How do you know if young of year survive or not when parents (or parent) die? What empirical evidence exists?

I can say this: After I take out a lot of adult beaver out of a stretch of river, the next season my catch will be mainly composed of of a lot of L and XL size beaver which in our area are year and a half olds. This tells me that the kits that lost their parents did indeed survive.

Thinning out beaver keeps beaver populations healthy.

Sounds like a good FB site to start

It is/was standard practice to just trap the adults here and leave the rest for seed. Or you could also clean out certain amount of lodges and leave the others for seed. We also had seasonal bag limits. The theory is similar to Boco's about more food for the survivors. The kits still have older brothers and sisters to teach them? Not sure what the kits don't know about being a beaver by 6 months?

My best confirmation comes from video. In several instances over the years I have been tasked with stopping timber damage. The main concern is the large trees, so I catch the big ones that are chewing the big trees then set up cameras. In a few of these cases, for there is only a mated pair and the young of year (typically they are around 10-13 pounds) and the YOY are still there in the spring, although they are not causing any tree damage, and the landowner specifically does not want the colony eradicated as long as the tree damage stops. These YOY will often not start chewing big trees until the following or sometimes two years later, so the customer has been happy that the beavers are still in the pond but tree damage is under control. But as to the question at hand, nothing but YOY on the cameras all winter and the following spring, and they are still there in the spring so they obviously survived.
The other is that two years ago I had a job where the landowner wanted them all gone. I caught two 40-ish pound adults, and set up cameras. Only YOY on camera, then the ice hit. Around here most don’t try to trap under ice, not cold enough. So in the spring when water opened I went after them and caught 4 little ones between 12-15 pounds. That was it, no more at that lake until fall when another adult pair moved in.

I guess from these observations, I just assume the YOY can survive on their own by fall. But I do understand that some regions may have more challenges for a YOY beaver, so maybe they are less likely or even unlikely to survive other places, but around here they clearly do just fine.

As for the Fb page, I created it. In the coming days I will go ahead and upload a cover photo and maybe if there no rules against it, I will post a link here. Anyone is welcome follow it and post your services and information that can be helpful to people looking for solutions to beaver problems. Again, the idea here is to give people a page where they can find information about beaver damage mitigation or resources like nuisance control operators or beaver deceiver installers, and accurate information about beavers in general - without the animal rights propaganda. Because right now, if someone looks on Facebook (which apparently many do) for this info, what they find is a page called “Beaver Management Forum”, and it is run and dominated by a bunch of animal rights folks who call themselves beaver experts. Like it or not, it appears to be impacting those of us who work in the (REAL) beaver management field. And it bothers me.

There is a lot of nonsense being spread by so-called experts. We've got our share in Oregon.

Beaver are the new favorite of the hugger community.

I think anyone who traps for fur/management take the adults out of their beaver colonies and leave the young ones for seasons to come, the creeks keep producing beaver, so I'm assuming they survive

If a landowner wants them gone, I oblige and remove them all. Trapping a river or lake you will never get them all. I like the way the little ones fit in my roasting pan too.

Eric, as you know the given examples is how the management theory works. Situations can differ from area to area as you also know. Boco's example is in extreme conditions where predators abound. But USUALLY around where we live while there are predators present my areas mirror yours... some of the young make it and survive to start the process all over again.
Watch out as these CRAZIES on social media are ruthless!

Sounds like a good plan Loosanarrow. I’m sure you’ll be busy booting people off, I assume the people that run the big trapping pages are busy because I rarely see dumb comments, some uneducated ones ones like guys saying the average weight of wolves in their area is 130lbs. The scammers selling fur come and go.

I wish the young one's died too, lol. Unless a otter roams by and finds them while they are little they survive.

^^^^^this