Had an old male in a shallow lake on a contract property with a zero tolerance policy on beavers.
It was super spooky, avoided everything visible snares and body grips and exposed footholds. I left it alone couple weeks and snuck back with carefully concealed footholds
. He got lucky and left a toenail in one.
After that he just disappeared. No more trees chewed, no sign that he was exiting the water anywhere. After a few days I decided that he must have left.
But then a couple weeks later I noticed “islands” of mud a pineapple roots getting bigger, with fresh pineapple roots floating around the islands and chewed up on the islands. I took a canoe out and sure enough, he was building islands and had completely stopped coming to shore. I kept watching another couple weeks thinking he would eventually start coming back to shore, but he never did. Rather than take another chance spooking him with a trap, I sat with buckshot on a full moon and that was the end of that saga.

Had an old male in a shallow lake on a contract property with a zero tolerance policy on beavers. It was super spooky, avoided everything visible snares and body grips and exposed footholds. I left it alone couple weeks and snuck back with carefully concealed footholds. He got lucky and left a toenail in one. After that he just disappeared. No more trees chewed, no sign that he was exiting the water anywhere. After a few days I decided that he must have left. But then a couple weeks later I noticed “islands” of mud and pineapple roots getting bigger, with fresh pineapple roots floating around the islands and chewed up on the islands. I took a canoe out and sure enough, he was building islands and had completely stopped coming to shore. I kept watching another couple weeks thinking he would eventually start coming back to shore, but he never did. Rather than take another chance spooking him with a trap, I sat with buckshot on a full moon and that was the end of that saga.