By Staff
Forty years ago if anyone had said there were beaver here in southwest Michigan I'd have called them a loony-tune.
Having canoed the streams, fished the ponds, rivers and lakes and earned money trapping muskrats I'd been around more than most and had never seen a hint of beaver. I wasn't as all-knowing as I thought, though. In the early 1970s I was riding with Cass County conservation officer Dick Cox (now retired).
We were prowling around the headwaters of the Rocky River southwest of Marcellus and I was dumbfounded when we came across a beaver dam. My wife had grown up on the banks of the Rocky River, we'd canoed the Rocky and I even trapped a tributary not far from this dam and had never seen any sign of them. Dick wasn't as incredulous. He said he'd heard rumors of beaver in the Edwardsburg area for a long time so why not here, too? We have property on the Rocky River and I can report the beaver are still alive and well there.
Until a month or so ago these were the only beaver I knew of in these parts but then I got another surprise. I live on the Dowagiac Creek and routinely fish the creek and its mother stream, the Dowagiac River, as well as some of their tributaries. I've never seen sign of beaver anywhere in this watershed. The wife and I were strolling along the creek east of the house and lo and behold, there was an unmistakably beaver chewed poplar tree. A few weeks later I noticed a large poplar tree at the edge of the yard had fallen over. Nope, I take that back. It was beaver felled. Now there's another big poplar at the other side of the yard half gnawed through.
However long they've been here, I'll venture to guess the St. Joe River is the main vein of the beaver line and they're probably in many of the Joe's tributaries. These southern beaver are unusually secretive little buggers. They are nocturnal so we rarely see the animals. More obvious is their classical dams and lodges when they exist. Beaver need fairly deep water for predator protection so when in small, shallow streams they build dams to create deeper ponds. In the safe haven of the pond they build a lodge. In this lodge lives the family group consisting of Ma, Pa and two litter of offspring (after their second winter the young become sexually mature and leave the group). However, in this area most of the beaver for some reason live in the larger rivers. Here the water is plenty deep so there's no need to bother with a dam even if they could. Building a lodge in these deep, swift streams is obviously problematic so instead they dig a burrow into the stream bank. These can be up to 30 feet long and end in a den above the water line. The entrance to the burrow is underwater and very difficult to see.
I have yet to see one of our new neighbors. I do frequently see muskrats and my mind tries to turn them into a beaver but it's an impossible transition. A muskrat weighs in around two or three pounds. An adult beaver runs anywhere from 30 to 60 pounds with some gargantuans pushing 100 pounds. They say beaver are harmless but I know different. While a game warden in the Pacific Northwest I once live trapped a problem beaver. I hauled him off to a gorgeous new mountain home, carried the trap down to the gently babbling brook and opened it up, expecting him to nod in thanks and slip into the water. Not! He gave out a huff and came after me bent on vengeance. Believe me, those gnashing, chain saw teeth are true motivation for a very lively jig. Those River Dance folks had nothing over me. Don't think beaver are slow, either. He wasn't satisfied until he had me perched huffing and puffing in the bed of the pick-up truck. Carpe diem.