Beaver, Mountain Beaver and furbearer populations

[Coastal_native]

Hump,

You should talk to the Quinault Wildlife Bio.  He is monitoring a few cougars with GPS collars that use the areas you likely trap.  He's documented darn near every one of their kills over the last few years and I think beaver kills have been rare, if any.  I've not noticed a dip in the beaver population on the rez...although my knowledge only goes back 15 years.

[BOWHUNTER45]

Must be where you live  No shortage of Beaver or Mountain Beaver in these parts . Last year I sat on a mountain side hunting bear when I watched mountain beaver falling fire weed like a lumber jack falling timber  It was something to see.. actually kept me entertained for a couple hours !

[Jonathan_S]

Must be where you live  No shortage of Beaver or Mountain Beaver in these parts . Last year I sat on a mountain side hunting bear when I watched mountain beaver falling fire weed like a lumber jack falling timber  It was something to see.. actually kept me entertained for a couple hours !

Those boomers are really something else.  They are so primitive they have to drink like half their body weight each day to stay alive.

[big wood]

Could be disease. I have seen 2- 70" plus beaver on my lines the last 2 years dead, just laying there without a mark on them. Last week the one I seen must have floated down during high water and got hung up. When the water reseded it layer on an island 20' from my Trap. I was perplexed. One each year.

[Humptulips]

We find beaver kills by cougar pretty regular when we are cougar hunting in Idaho and back when I could cougar hunt in Washington we found beaver kills pretty regular too. But I cannot ever remember seeing a colony of beaver wiped out by cougar. I think your big decrease in beaver must involve other factors. Maybe ask a few of those tribal fishermen if they ever catch beaver in their nets? 

Dale,
I know of one beaver colony that was wiped out by cougar. Kind of unusual as the beaver had no access to the river. It was a creek that came out of the Olympics and ran into the ground. One year on an extremely high flood water some beaver found there way in and I watched them for several years as they increased. I had decided I would carefully husband them as isolated as they were. One year I went in there and had decided it would be OK to take out two a year. They were all gone but I did find some covered mounds like cougar do with a few beaver bones in them. Never been a beaver there since.
That is unusual though. What I am seeing has been a gradual decline over a pretty large area. It kind of mimics the drop in deer here.

Hump,

You should talk to the Quinault Wildlife Bio.  He is monitoring a few cougars with GPS collars that use the areas you likely trap.  He's documented darn near every one of their kills over the last few years and I think beaver kills have been rare, if any.  I've not noticed a dip in the beaver population on the rez...although my knowledge only goes back 15 years.

I got a peek kind of second hand of some of the information the Makahs were getting on some radio collared cougar. I believe they had some cougar that specialized in beaver, didn't hunt deer or elk just beaver.
I don't spend much time on the rez now but from what I have seen is the beaver population is way down there too.

Could be disease. I have seen 2- 70" plus beaver on my lines the last 2 years dead, just laying there without a mark on them. Last week the one I seen must have floated down during high water and got hung up. When the water reseded it layer on an island 20' from my Trap. I was perplexed. One each year.

No way it is disease. If it was disease it would be more abrupt not a 15 year slide.

Incidentally, Out setting some traps today and jumped a cougar along the shore about 20 feet from me when it took off. It was eating a salmon not a beaver.

[3nails]

Bruce- Are you anywhere near where the elk are suffering from hoof rot? Possible herbicide/pesticide poisoning?

[billythekidrock]

Seems like this year I am seeing way more mt beaver sign than in recent years in the Capitol Forest. Even got pics of one after it ran across the C line in the middle of the day

[Humptulips]

Bruce- Are you anywhere near where the elk are suffering from hoof rot? Possible herbicide/pesticide poisoning?

No hoof rot here. I'm not a fan of spraying and it does have a negative effect on cat trapping for me but I can't see a connection  with  what I am seeing.

Seems like this year I am seeing way more mt beaver sign than in recent years in the Capitol Forest. Even got pics of one after it ran across the C line in the middle of the day

Well, That is good news. Gives me hope for the future.
I spoke with Professor Vet M/p-Veterinary Microbiology/Path of Washington State University Bill Foryet about this and he said it was likely disease with the best possibility being tularemia.
If so they should come back.

[onetrapper]

Of course spraying has been unchecked for decades around Twin Harbors.. If deer population have dropped because of it the the cougar would definitely hit the beaver harder.

[ouchfoss]

I actually talked to a guy who traps the Clearwater and he came to the same conclusion Bruce did. He,s trapped that area for 40 years and he said there isn't one spot worth throwing a trap into for beavers. I went up there two weeks ago to try for a beaver and of the few spots that had sign in them last year, not one had new sign since. I ended up getting one decent size beaver on an otter set by the river but after that, I pulled all my sets because it isn't worth the gas to drive up there for no new sign.

[ouchfoss]

I have seen plenty of mountain beaver sign though. I had one actually leave a big wad of brush and leaves up against a cat live trap. Following day, the brush was all gone.

[wags]

Bruce,
I don't know if my experience on the mainland of SE Alaska is relevant, but in the last ten years the beaver have gotten a lot more scarce. The area I trap had a lot of logging activity in the 70's, 80's and 90's. Then Clinton shut it down. The beaver ponds are now being shaded out by re-prod. The beaver have to move back into the brush further from the waters edge to get feed (huckleberry brush and other marginal food). The wolves are mopping them up. It wouldn't surprise me if the cats are doing the same thing on the OP.
It's not just the lack of logging either. It's cyclical, beaver tend to eat themselves out of house and home in areas with heavy coniferous timber. Beaver are their own worst enemy.

[Sitka_Blacktail]

Bruce, the big change up the Hump is that its been turned into a giant Douglas Fir farm. That ain't Beaver food. They like willows and alder and other hardwoods. Back in the 70s and 80s I spent a lot of time up the Hump and there were lots of hardwoods then mixed in with the evergreens. The only place I've seen beavers that regularly ate on the bark of evergreens was on Afognak Island north of Kodiak, and those beavers went after Sitka Spruce of all things.

I keep telling you, that logging has screwed up the Humptulips drainage, not just for beavers and salmon, but for deer and elk also. But it's not logging itself that is bad, it's the techniques and management practices and the spraying. Monoculture is not good for the woods.

[Humptulips]

I get the whole habitat argument but there is a lot more going on then that. The lower river especially has plenty of good habitat but few beaver.
The tree farms may not be the best but to blame it all on them is really closing your eyes.
Copalis river is a good example of beaver making do in the past. I doubt they ever saw a maple, cottonwood and few willows. I've seen them cut practically everything including devils clubs. They were skinny but they survived. Now they are just gone.
I think one of the worst things from a habitat stand point has been the RMZs. Fresh growth along the streams was good for the beaver, much better then the larger trees and shade you get with the RMZs. Doesn't explain the swamps and sloughs along the lower river being empty though.