The Beaver’s Dam Building Behavior (Why, Where, and How Do Beavers Build Lodges and Dams?)

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Last Updated on July 15, 2022 by Tommy

Beavers are big, semi-aquatic rodents of the Castor genus native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. They have a thick coat of fur, webbed feet, and a flattened tail covered with scales. 

They can change their surroundings in many ways, thanks to their powerful jaws and teeth, which they use to cut down trees to construct their homes and dams.

They are often called ecological engineers due to their remarkable ability to build. The way they make their dams is very sophisticated and interesting. Let’s dive in and explore how patient and skilled these mammals are in constructing dams!

Why Do Beavers Build Dams?

Beavers instinctively build their dams because it is essential for their survival in the wild. Here are some of the most important reasons why beavers build their dams:

Dams Provide The Beaver Protection From Predators 

The main objective of building a dam is to create a deep pond that will help in protecting the beaver and its family against predators such as wolves, coyotes, foxes, and mountain lions. 

Thanks to their dams, beavers are able to secure easy access to food during the cold seasons, when food is scarce. In addition, they don’t have to leave their dam, preventing an encounter with hungry predators that target them, especially during the cold months.

The Beaver’s Lodge Provides Room For Food Storage

During winter, the pond effectively becomes a freezer where the beavers can store their food. 

Before winter approaches, beavers will collect young sapling branches and push the sticks in the mud underwater. The mud will keep the branches fresh throughout winter that will serve as beaver’s food during winter.

They will do it with all their favorite foods, such as fallen twigs, willow trees, and the inner bark of aspen, and harvest them when needed. They will just swim out of their lodge, get food under the water, and return quickly with no hassle.

Beavers’ Dams Create a Safe Space for the Beaver

Beavers build dams to feel safe and secure. They skilfully craft dams in streams or rivers to stop the moving water and create ponds of still water. 

This is to attain pleasant conditions around their home where they will raise their young. They are good swimmers, and a pond can help them easily carry wood that they can use to build a lodge, which is the name of their home.

What Do Beavers Use to Build Dams?

Beavers cut trees and branches using their sharp front incisor teeth. After cutting the trees, they will then gather more materials, such as grass, mud, underwater sediments, leaves, twigs, and rocks to help build the foundation and walls of the dam.

Everything is then pulled to the building site and assembled.

Do Beavers Always Build Dams?

Surprisingly, beavers don’t build dams all the time. There are times when the river where the beavers live is too big to build a dam.  They will be alright as long as they build their lodge in the riverbank where they can access food, mate, and an escape route from predators.

In other places, beavers will create and dig burrows or tunnels beneath the lodges. This burrow is usually dug to shelter pregnant beavers and infants. 

What’s Inside A Beaver Dam?

The pond produced by the beaver dam is an important habitat for wetland animals such as birds and fish. The ponds are also rich with other marine animals due to the security and thriving ecosystem they provide.

Beavers build their lodge in the middle of the pond. The lodge looks like a mini island and serves as the home and primary residence that further protects the beavers against predators.

What’s A Beaver Lodge?

The beaver’s dome-shaped lodges are their homes that protect them from harsh weather and predators. They take care of and raise their kits in this place to ensure that they will grow up in a secure environment.

Lodges have a big interior chamber above the water’s surface and are dome-shaped structures made of rocks, sticks, and mud all plastered together. 

The entrances to the lodges’ interiors are all submerged and below the surface of the water. There is more than one underwater entrance or tunnel that is also used as a safe escape route in case of danger. 

Above the waterline inside the lodge is a corridor that provides access to the large central room or nesting chamber. Beavers will stay here during winter as the lodge’s walls are insulated and warm.

The standard size of a lodge is 10 feet (3 meters) in height by 20 feet (6 meters) in width, although they can be as big as 16 by 39 feet (5 by 12 meters). Some lodges are even big enough to fit a human. (But don’t try entering one!)

What’s The Difference Between A Beaver Dam and a Beaver Lodge?

The main difference between a dam and a lodge is their function. Beavers build dams to stop the moving water of streams and rivers. This is to create a still and peaceful pond environment that will protect the beavers from their predators.

On the other hand, the lodge serves as their home that will not just protect them from predators but will also shelter them from the harsh weather conditions. 

If we were to compare them to human architecture, their lodges are their houses, the ponds are their backyards, and the dam is the fences that barricade their territory.

How Do Beavers Build Dams?

Beavers build dams by cutting down trees and branches using their strong front incisor teeth. Gnawing trees with their teeth takes a lot of skill and patience.

When cutting big trees, they will just munch it halfway through and then wait until the wind blows hard enough for the rest of the stem to fail and the tree to fall over.

They will drag the logs and branches into the water and swim through the pond, carrying their building supplies along with them. They will also gather necessary materials such as mud, rocks, and grass to build the base of their dam, and to fill up any crevices between the logs and branches, so the structure becomes wind-proof.

After giving the dam a good foundation, they will start to pile logs, sticks, and shrubs around the water door. They will then begin to interlock the timber to create the walls.

Once the walls are established, they will collect mud and other sediments from the bottom of the pond to seal and insulate the dam.  

How Do Beavers Pick A Spot To Build A Dam?

Before building the dam and lodges, beavers carefully select the location of their homes. The locations of their dams depend primarily on terrain and the availability of food. 

The best places to build dams are close to good potential food sources and building materials.

Beavers have been known to build lodges or dams near the banks of fast-moving rivers and streams, although it is more common in wetlands, lakes, and small streams. 

Do Beavers Build Dams Upstream or Downstream?

Beavers build their dams to impede the flow of water, creating a pond, so depending on how you see it, the dam will always be standing against the flow of the water, facing the “upstream” direction.

In terms of how close to the source of the flow of water beavers build their dams, they mostly prefer calmer, wider waters, which generally are situated farther from the source, or in other words “downstream”.

Beavers can, in principle, build dams both in upstream and downstream areas but they prefer to build them downstream as the chance of success is higher in these areas because of the calmer waters.

Upstream, the river flows faster, and establishing their dams in this spot will be more challenging compared to mid and down streams. 

Downstream areas, on the other hand, are also more commonly covered with vegetation and bigger trees which the beavers can use to build their lodge and dam. In calmer rivers,  the water floor is also covered with mud that they can use to insulate and intact the walls.

As the water comes further from the source (from upstream to downstream), the depth and width of the river will increase. The larger area and deeper the waters the better the environment for beavers to start their colony. 

Do Beavers Look For Special Trees And Branches For The Dam?

No, beavers don’t look for a specific species of wood in creating their dams. They will gnaw and cut the nearest and most available tree near their home no matter what kind of tree it is. Every tree is a special tree for them.

But this doesn’t mean that they don’t have some preferences. Beavers usually choose trees or stems based on their size and shape. They will start cutting the larger trees first because they’re more convenient to use for dam construction.

Later in the dam-building process, smaller branches and logs will be needed in order to fill in the gaps between the bigger tree trunks.

How Do Beavers Know How To Build Dams?

Juvenile beavers learn to build dams by observing their parents and older siblings. Their parents will usually teach them or allow them to watch as they collect materials and fix the leaks of the dam.

Beavers have a built-in instinct that allows them to build. You can also see this instinct in action when observing rescued beavers, or beavers that have been born in captivity. They naturally collect things and stack them on top of each other to build dams even without flowing water anywhere near.

This instinct is not enough, however. Beavers will start gaining experience by helping maintain their homes with their parents.

Do Beavers Build Dams Together?

Yes, beavers have a strong familial bond. They will work together to maintain the dam and lodge, which is also an important learning experience for juvenile beavers.

A team of beavers will be responsible for repairing the lodge while another will check the dams for leaks. As soon as they hear water flowing from a side of the dam, they will investigate and immediately repair the leak.

How Long Does It Take A Beaver To Build A Dam?

Surprisingly, a pair of beavers can finish building a watertight dam in a small stream in 2 to 3 days.  They have amazing skills that will allow them to build a dam efficiently for several days. It could take a bit longer or faster depending on their skills and the environment. 

The bigger the river, the more time the beavers will spend in making the dam and collecting materials. When the water flow is fast and strong, there are more chances that building a foundation will take more time to establish than it is when building in calm waters. 

In addition, an unfinished dam has a bigger risk of being swept away by the sudden change of water current. This means that the beavers will need to restart building the dams. 

Do Beavers Build Dams At Night?

Yes, beavers are nocturnal, so they efficiently work at night to avoid predators. However, beavers are really good at staying away from their predators, so they are mostly just nocturnal out of habit. 

The best time to see beavers building their dams is during dawn or dusk, usually an hour before the sunset and sunrise. But from time to time, we can see them working during the day too!

Do Beavers Build Multiple Dams?

Beavers won’t build multiple dams simultaneously. A pair of monogamous beavers will build one dam and a lodge for their home at one moment. 

A beaver will only create another lodge and dam if they have to abandon the one they live in for some reason. This means that multiple dams in one river can only happen if another family of beavers moves in a bit further down.

Why Do Beavers Abandon Dams?

A beaver will abandon its dam if the pond becomes too shallow because of underwater sediment accumulation. 

They will also abandon the dam if leaks are beyond repair, which will lead to the dam being breached, and the water eventually draining. Beavers are quite the builders, though, so it’s really rare that they cannot repair a leak.

Another, more common reason for them to abandon their dams is when the tree supply and food resources are depleted, meaning that the environment where they built the dam can no longer sustain their needs.

How Long Do Beavers’ Dams Last?

A beaver dam can last for centuries. There are beaver dams built 150 years ago that are still intact as of this moment, with no signs of breaking anytime soon. 

There are even dams that have been repaired and maintained by generations of beavers for over a thousand years. A well-built dam can maintain its structure for many generations.

The oldest intact fossilized beaver dam is 125,000 years old, found in Canada. While it is obviously no longer functional, this proves how strong these dams can be!

Do Beavers Need To Maintain Their Dams?

Yes, beavers need to constantly repair and fix the leaks in their dams. They will use their acute hearing to locate the noise of flowing water because this will lead them to the part of the dam that needs repairing. This is one of the reasons why beavers are said to really hate the sound of running water!

They will collect mud, grass, and twigs to fix the damaged area and prevent the water from flowing out of the dam. The maintenance process will, in turn, help strengthen and heighten the dam.

How Many Beavers Live In A Dam (Or Lodge)?

There is no specific number of how many beavers a dam or lodge can occupy. But the average amount is around 8 or more beavers that will work together to maintain the dam.

This consists of the adult parents and their offspring (the newly born kits and their older siblings from the previous litter). 

Sometimes, a dam can handle more than two litters at a time. This happens because some of the kits will refuse to leave their parent’s dam if there are no available spaces to build their own territories.

Are There Other Animals In A Beaver’s Dam?

The pond that the beavers create will often decrease the chances of the surrounding trees surviving. Many animals will make the snag (a partly or entirely dead tree) their nesting sites, such as great blue herons, tree swallows, and other wetland bird species. 

Small fish can find shelter in the bases of lodges, and some birds build their nests on top of lodges.

The newly established ponds also serve as homes to different amphibians, turtles, otters, muskrats, and other marine and semi-aquatic animals. Beavers really do get along with a lot of species!

What Do Beavers’ Dams Do For The Environment?

Beavers’ dams are beneficial to the environment. They have a significant positive impact on groundwater recharge, water quality, as well as plants and animals. 

The dams help slow the flow of water in a  stream or river. They help stop soil erosion and keep sediment in place, which filters and absorbs contaminants, including heavy metals, pesticides, and fertilizers. 

Beavers are also considered ecological engineers because they create a wetland that attracts insects, fish, and other animals. 

Are Beaver Dams Harmful For Nature?

Beavers’ dams can be harmful to nature sometimes. The flooding that the dams cause, may result in damaged structures and trees dying.

The beavers’ dams can flood large tracts of forest or agricultural land, and planted trees may be harmed or even destroyed. In addition, beaver dams may affect water temperature.

Beavers can also alter the face of the land by building dams that cause water from streams and rivers to collect, creating ponds and wetlands. Beaver dams may obstruct fish migrations in some regions between major lakes and breeding areas.

Generally, however, when beavers live in their natural environment, their dam-building behavior mostly has a positive effect on nature and local wildlife.

What Would Happen If Beavers Didn’t Build Dams?

Beavers significantly impact the ecosystems they live in, and without them building their dams, the local environments where they live would be very different. 

If beavers didn’t build dams, some regions would become overgrown with trees, making it difficult for new trees to grow.

Without beaver dams, the area would be drier and more uniform in terms of the plants and animals that inhabit it and the water would flow much more quickly. There would be significantly less favorable conditions for several animals that normally benefit from the ponds that beavers create with their dams.

Beavers’ dams boost the availability of freshwater and are beneficial for preserving the freshwater fauna, which is often in danger. 

Beavers do considerably more than just build wetlands and terrestrial habitats. In a beaver pond silt, plant growth and bacteria play an important role in absorbing sediment, hazardous waste, and dissolved nutrients.

Do Beavers Prevent Flooding?

Beavers can reduce flooding by decreasing the water flow of rivers and streams.  On the other hand, their dams can also flood valuable farmland in the valleys, but there are more positive results than there are bad ones. 

Beaver dams help prevent flooding because the pond and the soil underneath it can trap a significant amount of water. The flood water will be absorbed by the ground or slowly penetrate through the dam and gradually exit downstream. 

Beaver dams will also force water sideways onto floodplains where the water will be stored. This has the effect that flow rates are significantly lowered during heavy rainstorms, which helps people living around the area. 

Their dams also help the downstream environment by filtering the water, gaining the name of the earth’s kidney. Not only do the beavers prevent floods, but the flood water is also less contaminated thanks to the filtering system that beaver dams provide. 

Beaver Dams Can Prevent Forest Fires

Beavers’ dams prevent forest fires. Due to increasingly hot and dry conditions, forest fires have become more and more common across North America. 

The dam built by the beavers helps create a pond that extends into the nearby lands, allowing water to spread out and hydrate the soil and vegetation there. 

With the slower flow of water, rivers and streams also become wider, effectively creating a bigger gap between trees, which makes it less likely for wildfires to spread across the river.

Additionally, by creating ponds, dams, and canals, beavers nourish stream corridors or the areas near them. A healthy environment is less likely to produce forest fires. 

Wetlands produced by dams have an impact on the type of vegetation that grows in an area, which also influences the area’s humidity, lowering the possibility of forest fires.

The wetlands can also act as a barrier to a wildfire’s spread and often do not burn in one go.

Should You Break A Beaver Dam?

An individual should not break a beaver’s dam unless it is causing harm to the environment. It will be ineffective to remove a dam without eliminating the beaver population because the beavers will almost certainly begin rebuilding it immediately. 

In addition, beavers, as well as their dam, are important to the ecosystem and should not be removed without a proper reason. Some places, such as Canada, prohibit the removal or breaking of Beavers’ dams. Disturbing or removing a den or lodge without a Damage Control Licence is prohibited by law. 

Beaver dam removal might be allowed once a person has already consulted the regulations and processes of their local municipal, provincial, and federal governments.

What Happens To Beavers If They Lose Their Dam?

When beavers lose their dams, they will be exposed to danger because the primary reason why they construct dams is to provide deep waters that protect them from predators like bears and wolves.

When a beaver loses its home, it will immediately find another location or use the same spot where it will build another dam. It will not waste time and will immediately start collecting materials to build a home that will make the beaver and its family feel secure. 

FAQ:

Do Beavers REALLY Hate The Sound Of Running Water?

Yes. Beavers hate the sound of running water because the sound of it indicates that their dams have leaks. They will listen for this sound in order to locate structural flaws in their dams. 

An ideal dam, to the beaver, is silent because it prevents any water from passing through. 

Can You Stop Beavers From Building Dams? (Should You?)

Yes, there are several ways to stop beavers from building dams, but always remember that an animal’s natural behavior should not be hindered if it doesn’t threaten other organisms. 

Repellents and sprays can prevent them from building dams. A good way to get a beaver to go is to spray the area with something that “smells bad” to them. Be sure to only use natural repellants, however.

You can also build fences around the water sources and paint the bases of nearby trees with latex paint mixed in with sand. This is a particularly effective deterrent because beavers don’t typically enjoy the gritty feeling of sand in their teeth.

But the best way to approach beaver-related issues is to call a wildlife rehabilitator. Let them decide how to handle the situation and determine if the beaver actually represents a problem for other species around the dam.

Do Beavers Use Their Tails When Building Dams?

Beavers primarily use their teeth to cut down trees and bushes for building dams and lodges. They then use their strong arms and legs to drag branches and trunks to the building site.

They don’t directly use their tails for building the dams, but the tails help the beaver to swim, as well helping them not fall over when sitting upright.

Do Beavers In Captivity Build Dams?

Beavers in captivity will still build dams, as long as they have access to building materials. The beaver has a natural instinct to construct, and it uses these abilities to alter its surroundings and create homes that are better suited to its aquatic requirements. 

A beaver’s instinct to build dams is very strong. They don’t appear to be able to stand the sound of moving water and must prevent it. Beavers kept in captivity will construct unnecessary dams to continue building. 

Although dam-building is an instinctual action for beavers, they still need the experience to be more competent in the wild.

When living in captivity, beavers may gather all kinds of stuff that they arrange neatly in piles in order to satisfy their instinct for dam-building. In some cases, there is neither running water, nor trees present, however, but this doesn’t deter the beaver from trying to build something.

Are Beavers The Only Animals That Build Dams?

Yes, beavers are the only animal that builds dams besides humans. These mammals are regarded as keystone species because of their dams’ profound impacts on neighboring ecosystems. 

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