Those Dam Beavers!!

Update: I haven’t been active at this permission due to work, natural disaster, and other weather factors. When I go back I’ll update this thread. The animals should be relatively comfortable by now with no pressure being imposed upon them. We’ve had a lot of trees blown down in a recent storm. I’m curious to see how they have capitalized on that phenomenon.

iAMzehTOASTY1 said:

wonder if the hog will mess up the dam; ensuing a beaver vs hog fight

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@iAMzehTOASTY1 Doubt there was a fight, but I pulled the cameras this evening and saw this upon arrival.


Apparently the hog(s) made a mess of the end of the dam.

I’ve finished reviewing my trail cam footage from this permission and I have seen some very interesting things that I’ve never witnessed in person. I got a chance to see herons and egrets fishing, eating, and squabbling, a hawk capturing water fowl and flying off with it, a sounder of hogs cooling off in the pond, rooting around the bank, shoats establishing dominance, and various animals doing other animals things. It’s like a personal National Geographic channel. Two things that are missing from the footage:
1) How our last big storm looked on film. My cameras didn’t pick up anything in all of the wind and lightning from that night.
2) I have not captured any footage of beavers in the pond or on the dam.

If anyone has captured trail cam footage of beavers, what worked for you? How can you situate a trail camera so that motion in the water triggers the sensor? That’s a bit frustrating. All of this time and I have no beaver footage aside from NV hunting footage amd footage of me toting a carcass across the dam.

This has been a learning experience. I will definitely return to this permission to hunt other animals as I now can see how the beavers have benefitted animals within this ecosystem. Strangely enough, they only plugged the holes that I made to stop the flow of water. Their patch work is just that, it’s not a rebuild. They didn’t level off their patches with the top of the dam, so now the pond holds less water. Evidence of this can be seen in the last phot I posted of the pond. When viewing it, you should be able to see a lot more plant growth around the water and in some areas that were previously under water. When the pond fills, its level is not nearly as high as it was when I spotted the water level close to the bottom of the bridge and feared that the bridge may wash out under a deluge that could create flash-flood conditions. Another thing, I never saw evidence of a state trapper getting involved. I also haven’t noticed signs of anyone from Bridges and Roads come to repair damage from erosion, burrowing, or do much of anything to preempt further damage. At this point the property owner seems more concerned about the hogs than anything else. To my understanding, various species of animals I’ve seen at this permission have been here for years. With that said, I think it is unrealistic and irrational to expect to eradicate any of them. This is a management job which is a part of the purpose of hunting. In conclusion, I believe that I was able to provide some sort of service to the benefit of the property owner and the public when I had time to do so. While I did not accomplish all that I set out to, I learned valuable lessons in the time that I worked this permission.

Photos:
Me toting beaver #2 across the dam. I forgot to turn off my IR torch on my rifle.


A red-shouldered hawk flying off with captured water fowl. This is one of my favorite photos from my footage. By the time this hawk triggered the camera, it already had this bird in its talons. I remained in the frame for 1 second. In that amount of time it flapped its wings three times while carrying this bird off. The bird extended its neck up towards the hawk’s body and when it flapped its wings, the left wing hit the prey bird im the head and knocked it down towards the water. Such power!! The feathers that came off this prey bird were in the air several seconds longer than the hawk was in the camera frame. They are swift creatures!!


Hogs trying to keep cool during the dog days of summer.


Approx 7-9 hogs visible on dam and in pond at night. Look towards the center of the photo in the area between the tall grass and brush.


The heron below is trying to figure out how to swallow what appears to be a perch that it caught. These birds eat from this pond every day, multiple times per day. This guy is a sniper! I’ve seen him catch several fish. If you look in the background, you can see on of my dam breaks that has been plugged and patched. You can also see that the top of the patch is lower than the dam, thus altering the water level in front of the dam.


It’s always a pleasure to watch deer browse.
She didn’t tarry either. If you can zoom in, you may see the heron in the background crouched down (to the left of the pine tree in the middle of the pond) behind the brush waiting to catch a fish or frog swimming by.


This raccoon frequents this pond day and night. Look at the right right side of the photo in the water. Look for the reflection of the eyes. I’ve encountered it in person on a couple of nights out there. It has very keen senses. One night I caugh a faint image of it in my thermal scanner. It was about 70 yards away. By the time I put the IR scope on it, it was on its way away from the pond. On this particular night in the photo, my trail cam caught it in the water fishing.


Edited to add photos of some of the things and animals that I posted about seeing around this dam and pond.

Ezana4CE said:

@kayaker Thank you. I did check for a pass through and I don’t expect them using this gun with its current tune. I may have got one pass through. It’s really hard to tell. I doubt it though. I shot at least 7 times. I know for a fact that I hit it at least 4x. Maybe 5x because it didn’t seem to want to die. Ever time I thought it was dead it started moving again. I sent follow-up shots when I had an opportunity once I realized that she appeared to be suffering, not dying. All shots were either headshots or misses. After shining and butchering her I saw no evidence of body or neck shots.

The shot below could possibly have been a passthrough. It may line up with the shot under the eye on the opposite side.
View attachment 359741

Edit: I think I missed a hole or two. Looking at photos this afternoon and I found another that I didn’t see in other photos.
View attachment 360093

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I finally got around to editing the footage into a short enough clip to upload. The link below contains footage of the first shot which appears evident in the 1st photo in the above quote.


I added an additional video clip to post #95. The clip is the source of the still photos within the same post.

I rode by this dam the other day and noticed grass growing on probably half of the previously dammed area. What happened was a furious rain storm dumped a lot of water in the area sometime between fall 2023 and spring 2024. Since that dam backed the water up so far, the weight of all of the water behind the dam broke it dead center which aligns with the original path of the creek. This isn't bad news for the property owner, but not so great news for me as one who occasionally helps manage nuisance animals. I haven't been down there to see what the activity looks like, but the beavers never repaired the break. Now I've seen and heard of reports of beaver activity on other properties in the vicinity of this one, but I haven't taken time to speak to others about helping with their issues. Maybe I'll find time to speak with a few other property owners to see what they'd like to do. Anyhow, I'll try to get some drone photos of how the pond and land around it looks now. I don't even know if the beavers are still living in the lodge in this pond. Maybe the drone can pick up if they created another dam downstream somewhere. Anyhow, just wanted to update the thread while it was on my mind.