When my sisters visit from Ireland, I try to play tour guide, but I’m occasionally at a loss for what to do next. During a visit in the late 1990s, my sister Grace said she would love to see a beaver.
At that time, I lived close to a beaver pond and often quietly waited for beaver sightings. Alas, the rodents failed to cooperate for Grace’s visit, although she was able to see their engineering work. I was disappointed for her, but not surprised. Many of my own encounters ended with at most a fleeting glimpse, and a loud slap of a leathery tail on water. [Read more…] about Beavers: Landscape Engineers
Aside from humans, perhaps no other species can modify its surroundings for its own purposes as much as beaver.
Beavers are the great architects of American ponds and streams. The North American beaver competes with the Eurasian beaver to be the 2nd largest rodent in the world, after another semi-aquatic mammal, the South American Capybara.