I've seen the before and after but never the during.

Busy Boy.....

Amazingly sharp teeth

All about beaver teeth:

https://a-z-animals.com/blog/b...ng-you-need-to-know/

Well done, Beav. You know your geometry better than I do.

I have a buddy that traps beavers for me every 3 years or so. They can do some serious damage in a very short time. 60lb beaver was the last one he got.

One thing I noticed about beavers around here, they fall the trees toward the water. Smart little bastages.

I have lost about 30 acres to beavers in the last 5 years. Tried trapping them to no avail. What works best for me is a good light and my AR. I hate those damn things.

I would have put money on both of those trees falling the opposite way.

That is cool. It is amazing how fast they can work. I like them.
I have a very cool beaver trapper hat. Incredibly warm.

I have a friend who has trapped for many years. The pelts are worth money. He would get calls from the DEC about plugged up ponds and water ways, to trap them out. He was very skilled at beavers, scrats, mink, all of them.

I like beavers too... But most I've seen were after dark.

I used to trap, now more of an occasional assistant.

As to beavers felling a tree towards water, in most instances trees have a natural lean towards sunlight, or down slope. I’m not ready to give the beavers credit for figuring out how to drop a tree a certain way.

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:
As to beavers felling a tree towards water, in most instances trees have a natural lean towards sunlight, or down slope. I’m not ready to give the beavers credit for figuring out how to drop a tree a certain way.

Bingo. I've felled enough trees to not know the count. Over a thousand, easily. Maybe approaching two thousand.

In the OP's opening video, those trees fell backwards to the way I expected them to fall. With a straight trunk and a balanced crown, they should have fallen close to 180 degrees away from what occurred.

In my younger days we put on an off-road motorcycle event in New Hampshire. Friday before the weekend event we would knock the dam down (4-5 feet tall) to lower the water level. After sending a couple hundred motorcycles through, it only took them a day to fix the dam.

Amazing to watch and very good engineers.