A New Addition to the Local Fauna: Castor Canadensis

I spent part of the morning traipsing through a calcareous fen that is about to be surveyed for bog turtles, and on the way back to our cars my companions and I watched a large mammal swim across the lake that the fen drains into.

The others were sure of what it was, but I was skeptical. A few minutes later, though, we came upon two thin pussy willow trunks that clearly had been chewed off, lying in the shallows of the lake – the unmistakable sign of Castor canadensis, the American beaver. It was the first one I’ve seen in our town, and for all I know might be the first one anyone has seen here in modern times.