A 13-year-old Maryland boy is reported to be recovering from multiple surgeries and nerve damage after being attacked by a rabid beaver. The teen, Dominick Cebula, was swimming at a popular spot in Cunningham Falls state park in Thurmont, Maryland, on 26 July when a beaver attacked his chest underwater, a relatively rare kind of […]
Tag: Beavers
Could this endearing mammal be the reason Canada exists?
Canada may not have existed as we know it today if it wasn’t for the beaver, and certainly wouldn’t have been explored by Europeans as quickly, says Christian Dunn. From the mid-16th century, beaver pelts were brought from North America to Europe primarily for making hats, and this continued – to varying degrees – into […]
Cougars cut deadly vehicle-deer collisions in the US by up to 76%, study shows
If you’re a black-tailed deer on the Olympic Peninsula in the U.S. state of Washington, you’re always surrounded by friends and family. You are free-range, with abundant food to forage in familiar woods and meadows. But you’re also vigilant because you’re a prey species and your ideal habitat is also home to your top predators: […]
Beavers restored a volcano-scarred river. Now it’s at risk again
More than 40 years after sediment from a volcanic eruption filled up a stretch of the North Fork Toutle River in the U.S. state of Washington, beavers are turning the smothered waterway into a thriving wetland. However, a planned infrastructure project now threatens to undo five years of restoration progress, reports contributor Isabel Gil for Mongabay. Following […]
France’s largest rewilding project takes root in the Dauphiné Alps
In the foothills of the western Alps in southeastern France, horned alpine ibex roam the limestone cliffs of a smaller mountain range known as the Dauphiné Alps, a region once home to thriving populations of wild horses, bison, roe deer, gray wolves, Eurasian lynx, and four species of vultures. In June of this year, the […]
Can mountain lions make a comeback in the US north-east? One group hopes so
Last summer, a wildlife photographer saw, or believed he saw, a mountain lion in South Burlington, Vermont. While it’s possible, it is also remarkable: the apex predator was rendered extinct in northern New England in 1881 and the nearest confirmed breeding population is in North Dakota, 2,000 miles (3,200km) away. But there could be in […]
Beavers restored to tribal lands in California benefit ecosystems
CHESTER, Calif. — The pictograph, an ochre-red outline with four paws and an unmistakable paddle of a tail, has been on the reservation “my whole life,” said Kenneth McDarment, a member of the Tule River Tribe. It’s just one of many paintings — of people, geometric designs and other wildlife — from 500 to 1,000 […]
Beavers were welcomed back to the Netherlands. Until they started digging 17m-long tunnels
The beaver has made an amazing comeback in the Netherlands. Extinct in the early 19th century, it was reintroduced in 1988, and now there are an estimated 7,000 beavers roaming around. Compared with England, where the beaver population is estimated at 500, that’s quite a feat. But there’s a significant downside to the booming Dutch […]