In the wild, beavers can grow to 4 feet in length and weigh up to 60 pounds, and that’s pretty solid muscle (think American bulldog)! And our 2 1/2″ teeth (half an inch shorter than a great white shark’s) are constantly growing!
It’s always important to respect wildlife and give them their distance, and to be fair, beavers are so stealthy that folks don’t always realize they’re in our space! For instance, on June 18 of this year, a fellow named Mike Cavanaugh was paddling his kayak near Rochester, New York, when an angry beaver leapt from the water, tipped over his kayak, and chewed up his arms and back! On September 5, a grumpy beaver took a chunk out of a snorkeler’s leg in Nova Scotia!
In several (I like to think most) of these instances, the beaver had been infected with rabies, which is a horrible viral infection that actually takes over a beaver’s brain and forces it to bite other animals in order to spread! That was the case with two Virginia beavers who attacked swimmers in 2012! Lillian Peterson at Barcroft Lake and the Radford sisters at Lake Anna were both treated, but tragically, the beaver attackers were euthanized!
Some people are just inconsiderate. On May 29, 2013, The Guardian ran a story about a fisherman in Belarus who had tried to grab a beaver by the side of the road and snap its photo. That indignant beaver bit into his leg, severed an artery, and killed the guy! While that was a little extreme on the part of the beaver, and possibly a grudge from being nearly hunted to extinction in Europe, it’s just common courtesy to ask permission before you take someone’s picture!
Sometimes, beavers reverse roles and invade human spaces! In May of 2014, the Toronto Star reported that an angry beaver had terrorized the entire town of Miramichi! It stopped traffic with its cantankerous rampage, and the police had to get involved! (Luckily, no one, including the beaver, was injured!) Also in Canada, a beaver knocked out the power in the town of Burnaby, British Columbia, and another on Prince Edward Island pushed a tree onto a tourist family’s car! Again, no one was injured, but those beavers clearly had a message to spread!
The lesson to be taken from all of this is, don’t mess with beavers! Beavers, like all wildlife, should be given a respectful distance, because, after all, we made our home in the wilds of North America and Europe long before people! Give us some space, and see what marvels we can create! Get up in our face, and beware our fury!