Hey all glad to be back on the forum. Its been a minute. Anyway I have a question about figuring the density of beaver in a river system. So for context im in utah and its a river system that stretches about 50 miles inlet to outlet. Now at present time if I time it right and arive at the failing of the day I will see one or two beaver every time. It doesn't mater what stretch or bend of the river im on. If haven't seen at least one then ill just hang or walk for five more minutes .

Of course the signs of the county being agitated about them is all around in the form of chicken wire surrounding trees. But back to my original question. Any suggestions on how I could gauge the population density of beavers on this short river system. On another note I do plane on setting some snare floats out for a few on them.

Thanks in advance.

look for dens and feed beds. multiply by 4 for a rough estimate.

Every river and area is different. A few common factors I look at to guess…
- How much connected water that has beaver feeds into this river? Backwaters, lakes, streams can all feed beaver into a larger system. If trapping in the late winter/spring this can have a huge positive impact to the population.
- Hot much trapping pressure do they see? Is it remote or easy to access? Nuisance potential (development, agriculture impacts).
- How good is the habitat - food, drought impacts.


Utah specific information here, page 90-91 has the most information as to population.
https://www.beaverinstitute.org/wp-...A-Decision-Support-and-Planning-Tool.pdf

It's always hard to judge. Especially since flooding tends to erase most sign around the dens. If you start seeing a lot of castor mounds along the banks, then you've probably for multiple colonies in the area. Looking at the number of active slides and feeding activity in corn is a good indicator too

X2

Most of my river trapping for beaver is almost always near a tributary. Mark sign on your topo maps & you may see a pattern like this

Gosh, this is a tough one to be on top of without seeing it in person, but….

I. A lineal feature, like a river, beaver density can be close together because offspring and their offspring will tolerate each other in close proximity to another “territory.” Where coyote family groups won’t tolerate intruders, beavers will tolerate their own grandkids even if they’ve never met. For this reason, sometimes you’ll see beaver lodges up and down from each other less then a 1/4 mile of food is present. This could be 3 or 5 houses. With a larger separation, you start to see more territorial markers, which indicate a no kidding break in that relationship.

Anyway, outside of that, I see 1/2 mile in between houses here and assume 4 to 6 per. I’ve caught up to 14.

You didn’t want all that info but I could go on for days about beavers. lol.

This doesn’t mean you’ll see the above but it’s something to be aware of as you start examining.