Interesting Facts About Beavers

Beavers are the largest animal belonging to the rodent family. They can grow to be four feet in lenght (including the tail) and weight between 75 and 110 pounds, although most beavers weigh in the 40 to 50 pound range. How big they get depends largely on the amount of food available for them. The more food there is, the bigger they get.

A beaver's tail is about 12 inches long and 5 inches wide. Most people think beavers use their tails to pack mud in the building of dams and huts, but this is not so. Their tail is used mostly as a rudder when swimming, or a prop to help keep them steady when they sit to eat or chop down trees.

The tail (made up of cartilage and bone, covered by scales) is used also as a warning signal. When a beaver senses danger is near, he will slap the water with his tail to alert other members of the family that danger is near.

Their front legs aren't used when swimming. Instead the front legs are used for holding food, mud, or stones close to the chest.

Their large front teeth grow throughout their lifetime and therefore need to be kept files down. This is accomplished by cutting down trees and shrubs. Cheek teeth are used for chewing food.

Beavers eat leaves, twigs, bark, skunk cabbage sprouts, ferns, and water plants. In the fall they will gather food and store it near the beaver hut so they have easy access to it during the winter months.

A beaver family will consist of two adults, three or four yearlings, and three or four kits. When the young are about 22 months old they will go off on their own and start their own family.

Beavers breed in February, giving birth to three to five kits in May. In the wild they can live to be about 12 years old. In captivity they can live to their late teens.

In the 1700s beaver hats became the rage in Europe. Hats weren't made from the skin of a beaver but rather from the undercoat of the fur coat. It was found that the undercoat contains microscopic barbs and can easily be pounded into felt, which was used to make the hat.

Beaver pelts became valuable and trappers started trapping them year round. It can be said beavers helped in the exploration of North America. As beavers became more and more scare in the East, trappers moved West to where the beavers were.

In 1832 silk was used to make hats and silk hats became more popular than beaver hats. It's a good thing too, as by this time beavers were on the brink of extinction.

With strict trapping laws in place today, beaver flourish. Sometime their population gets too great and causes haszards to the environment. Their dams can cause flooding to both fields where crops are grown as well as flooding of roads. When this happens, special beaver trapping permits are given or the beaver will be caught and relocated.