There are no peace-loving, diligent, and hard-working animal wildlife species in North America quite like the beaver. The North American beaver (Castor canadensis) is known to be very social, at least among their kin. Beavers practice a highly organized social structure. Their manners of social interaction and behaviors are great topics for discussion.
What are the characteristics and behavioral cues that make the beaver an exemplary social animal? Is their intelligence truly superior compared to other rodents? How do they interact and communicate with each other? Let’s find out.
How Many Beavers Live Together?
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As social creatures, beavers that are related to each other tend to live together in family groups for a very long time. A group of beavers is composed of 2 to 8 members.
However, before they become a group, every beaver story starts with a male beaver meeting a female beaver. The pair will pledge their eternal love and loyalty to each other; because these rodents are monogamous, they will only have one partner for the rest of their lives.
The first few months are spent by the new couple building their habitat. They will convert their chosen pond according to their specifications by building dams and rerouting the flow of water. They chop down trees and use the lumber along with mud to build their structures. Once the pond is transformed to their liking, the pair will then build their lodge, the beavers’ home.
How Beavers Start A Family
The beaver pair starts to mate during the winter season. North American beavers have a gestation period of 2-4 months. As spring arrives, a litter of 1-4 kits is born. The cute little kits are usually weaned just after 14 days but they will stay together and live in the lodge as a family for another 2 years.
The newly-born kits solely depend on their mom’s milk for sustenance. By the third month, they will start nibbling on the small branches their parents bring in the lodge.
The young beavers spend much of the first few months playing and swimming around the lodge. The kits are great swimmers but never stray more than a few feet away from their home.
The young beavers’ social skills start to develop during their early months of life. They may be a little whiny but all they seek is attention from their parents. Whining is a sign a kit wants to be fed or groomed.
The younglings will take the time they spend with their parents to watch and learn the following activities:
- Build dams
- Repair their lodge
- Find and store food
- Build scent mounds
- Protect themselves from predators
The cycle repeats for the next couple of years. New sets of litter arrive every spring. The yearlings will help their parents in taking care of their younger siblings during their stay. By the second year, the first set of young beavers is forced out by their parents to live on their own.
Do Beavers Let Outsiders In?
Even with their friendly and social nature, beavers do not take the presence of outsiders lightly. They will go into fierce battles, if necessary, just to drive outsiders away. However, to avoid direct confrontation with unwanted visitors, the beaver will build scent mounds to warn intruders that the area is taken and occupied.
Scent mounds are composed of dried leaves, twigs, mud, and a little bit of poop and urine mixed with castoreum, a chemical the beaver uses in marking its territory. The bigger the beaver territory is, the more mounds are built around the area.
What’s A Group Of Beavers Called?
A single unit of beavers is called a family. It is composed of a pair of beavers and their offspring. As the offspring grow, they start to live independently in the vicinity of their parents’ lodge or move elsewhere. A group of multiple generations of beavers living together in an area is called a colony.
Do Beaver Colonies Have Hierarchy?
Beavers living in a colony do have a hierarchical structure. The oldest female is the central individual or the leader of the group. Every colony is usually composed of two to eight beavers who will be working together in maintaining their dams, creating scent mounds, and taking care of the group’s younglings.
If the matriarch (female leader) dies and no other female exists to take over, the area will be abandoned and the colony dissolved.
Are All Beavers Friendly With One Another?
American beavers are friendly, especially to those that are part of their colony. They will play, swim around, build structures together, and gnaw trees as a group.
It’s another story for trespassers. Beavers can be very fierce when protecting their territory from intruders. You can hear beavers make hissing and growling noises toward the source of the threat.
Beavers do not show aggressive behavior unless they are threatened, afraid, or sick with rabies.
What Are Beavers’ Personalities Like?
The beaver is a family-oriented species. A single beaver colony’s success is attributed to its members’ roles and contributions. Each member needs to be extremely industrious and dedicated to performing the following daily activities: Chewing, building, digging, and damming.
In the wild, beavers can be seen working more than 12 hours per day doing their daily chores. These crepuscular rodents are active from the onset of dusk till the early hours of the morning. They are very creative in finding ways to cover the most area while spending the least amount of resources. So if someone tells you: “You work like a beaver!”, you can take that as a compliment.
Are Beavers Smart Animals?
Some may say that beavers are smarter than some humans. That’s probably true in some ways. This species is second only to humans in its capabilities to alter ecosystems. Beavers can build dams, irrigation systems, water filtration systems, and they are even able to utilize basic materials in their environment for a lot of complex purposes.
Just take a look at the beaver’s impact on the environment:
- Flourishing ecosystems are built upon the structures made by the beavers.
- Birds, amphibians, plants, and insect populations significantly increase whenever beavers are around.
- The dams and walls beavers build are excellent flood control structures.
- Oxygen levels in the area are boosted due to the massive proliferation of plant species.
- Soil erosion is prevented while mineral-rich silt is deposited all across the land.
The structures they build are amazing despite the crude materials they use. Thanks to their ingenuity, they can build dams, lodges, and waterways that last for hundreds of years with minimal maintenance necessary. The beaver’s engineering prowess and designs have actually been studied and adapted by humans.
Speaking of tools, all the beaver needs in molding its environment are its orange-colored teeth. A 12-inch in diameter tree can be chopped down by beavers in just 20 minutes. Their teeth continuously grow throughout their lifespan and there’s no need to sharpen them. What a powerful tool!
There’s no other animal on this planet that can bring life and help other species thrive, and provide a positive impact on the environment than the beaver. Their ability to restore dead watersheds and create habitats for a large number of plants and animals is even better than what humans have done to the environment.
Now, which do you think is the smarter species?
Beavers Are Super Creative
There’s no question when it comes to the beavers’ creativity. Just take a look at the ways and means these rodents do that are truly impressive:
- Beavers make an hourglass-shaped cut on large trees and then use the effects of gravity to aid them with the task. These animals must have studied physics growing up!
- Their lodges don’t have doors to protect them from predators. Instead, they have multiple tunnels that lead to the water which also serve as their escape routes.
- On top of that, they also have a chimney to regulate the temperature inside the lodge.
Aren’t those critters a creative bunch?
Beavers are highly social creatures. They usually live in groups and in the same lodge. An extended family of multiple generations stays together as a colony before the young adults leave the territory in order to start their own families.
How Do Beavers Interact With One Another?
Beavers interact with each other using their senses of smell, hearing, and a little bit of touching.
- The animals differentiate one beaver from another through their scent.
- The parents will quickly respond to their kits’ cries and whines.
- Hissing and growling are displays of aggression.
- Grooming each other is a form of affection between beavers.
Do Beavers Like To Play?
Beavers, especially the kits and yearlings love to play. Even the adults take a few moments from their work for a little playtime once in a while. The pond serves as their natural playground, swimming pool, and classroom. This is where they spend their time learning life skills along with some funny practical jokes.
How Do Beavers Communicate?
Beavers communicate through vocalizations, body language, and scent marking.
Vocalizations are used by beavers as means of communicating by sound. A variety of noises are produced to show various emotions like hunger, pain, and aggression, among others.
The rodents also use body language to show different types of emotions.
An example of the beaver’s use of body language is slapping its flat, scaly tail on the water to warn the colony of imminent danger. In just a split second, the beaver then dives underwater away from the threat. The tail-slapping and diving underwater come in a single motion. The other beavers that hear the signal automatically dive as well and rush back to the safety of their lodge.
The most important form of communication among beavers is their scent marking. The beaver’s sense of smell is remarkably sharp. A beaver can distinguish a relative from a trespasser just by catching a whiff of their scent.
Scent mounds are also a form of communication among beavers. The animals create piles of wood, leaves, and branches lathered with castoreum all across their territory to ward off beavers that are not members of their colony.
The rodent also uses its sniffing ability to frequently check its surroundings for any unusual scents like that of predators and other animal species.
Are Beavers Shy Around Humans?
Beavers are naturally shy, not just to humans, but to anyone who’s not their kin. This characteristic is part of their survival skills. Human scent can be easily caught by the beaver, so there’s no use hiding behind trees or creeping through tall grasses. The beaver knows you’re there.
If you’re still eager to watch these cute, little creatures, keep your distance and stay at least 15 feet away from the shore. Maybe the beavers will be kind enough to show you some of their tricks.
Author: Jomvie Reyes
Jomvie has been a writer for over 10 years and animals and wildlife are among his favorite topics. Learning and writing about the vast and diverse wildlife from all over the world, is more of a hobby than a job for him. Jomvie loves to watch and observe these remarkable species up close and personal.
