Strange Beaver Hide-Damage

Hey all,
I just started trapping beavers this week and I snared one with some strange damage. At least, strange to me. I searched around for some similar marks made on catches and I probably wasn't searching the right thing but I didn't find any similar marks. No sharp sticks or rocks around my set for the beaver to roll itself onto. It almost looks to me like some sort of raptor got after the beaver when it was hung up in the snare. I have heard owls in the area, not sure if this is their calling card though. Try to disregard the sloppy knife work, it's only the second beaver i've clean skinned. But none of the holes in the picture (except a nick close to an edge) are from my knife. Any ideas on what could've done this or how I could try and limit this from happening?

Look like normal beaver bite marks. If you caught it at a castor mound and the beaver could reach the mound, they get bit up.

They get territorial, especially in the spring, and fight each other. The bite marks you see are from another beaver.

To reduce them in the future? It's part of beaver trapping, but a few things below...
Trap and keep beaver numbers lower so there is not as much fighting for teritory.
Trap earlier in the season. The later it gets, the worse the biting can be.
Get the beaver dead and underwater so other beavers dont have a chance to bite them when in a trap.

Wow, that was my first thought but I didn't think they would get after eachother like that! Thanks for the reply, I'll definitely take your advice.

Snaring beaver on land is no good,Besides what you see there the snare will also damage the fur as the beaver struggles.
Use a 330 with a long wire so he can flip into deep water, or a foothold on a drowner.If you want to snare beaver,snare them under ice,or drown them with tangle stakes.

I agree with boco.

At one time I counted the number of holes like that I had in a particular beaver, there were 32 of them. That will happen occasionally when they die in a trap of some sort and they're not completely submerged.

What Boco said.

If beaver are being sold for the hatter trade does damage like that matter?

This is how I feel. If I was trapping strictly for fur instead of cowboy hats I would use boco's methods....although I would be hard pressed to find ice.

Good info here - I had no idea beavers will go after each other, but then again I've seen it with other animals - especially raccoons - when their numbers get way to high.

Those marks are all made while the beaver was in the snare, could be he just left a butt kicking session but I wouldn't put money on it, you can tell by the bruising around the cuts.

If it matters or not...they'll tell you it does. They buy low