Pesky mountain beavers?!?

So here I am in Seattle for the week. (By the way, I decided to walk from the building where my client is back to my hotel. Four blocks, basically straight up in the air… I HAVE to get in better shape; I was huffing and puffing after two blocks).

But I disgress. This post is occasioned by an item on the local news last night, about someone’s home, and the roof that collapsed into said home. The news anchor blamed this on - and while I was listening out of one ear, distractedly, I swear this wording is accuarte – “pesky mountain beavers.”

Now… maybe I was asleep that day in zoology class… but that seems pretty darn pesky! What kind of mountain beavers do you folks in Seattle have, anyway??

Maybe something like this?

http://www.eco-usa.net/fauna/aplodont.shtml

I don’t know if it has a reputation for wrecking rooves though.

Ah, tunnels!

That would explain it.

This has been a fun trip so far for local news stories – the news this morning had a great shot captured last night of lightning striking the Seattle Space Needle. Very cool…

We don’t need no stinkin’ beavers!

I don’t have anything factual to add about mountain beavers (I won’t even make a bad joke!), but that thing in the picture is soooooo cute!

Ah, yes, the Aplodontia, aka Sewellel, aka Mountain Boomer, aka Whistler, aka Chehalis, the most primitive of all living rodents. Not particularly related to beavers, and, as the link says, not particularly fond of mountains either.

Am I really the first to say – BAND NAME! – ?

And playing at Hooters tonight . . .

Bricker –

Mountain beavers are a nocturnal rodent that is a particular problem here in the Seattle area. Though I’m not sure if they’re related, their behavior is a lot like groundhogs in the eastern U.S.

They are so nocturnal that I doubt 5% of people in this part of the state have ever seen them. I manage 30+ acres of open space for our Homeowners Association and have seen one only once in 12 years here. But they dig warrens with multiple entrances and it’s the tunneling impact that brings down the trees by loosening the soil. Then, when it rains, conditions are perfect for the trees to come down in a windstorm – which is what happened to that house in Skyline.

The mountain beavers are subject to more than a little joking because so few people have seen them. Also because if a neighbor’s tree is bothering your view here you chop it down and blame it on the elusive “mountain beavers.”

But they have koala-like ears and are about the size of a groundhog. What are they so nefarious? Because they devour young vegetation and eat things like salal (a groundcover here) that nothing else will eat. Last year we planted 75 young hemlock, western red cedar and Douglas firs and the mountain beaver gnawed all of them except the Doug firs (and they even got a few of them). Recently I sprayed all of the young trees with pepper spray (capseicin) and the mountain beavers still ate them.

The only way to get rid of them is to trap them but even that’s tough. They dig warrens with multiple entrances, so you need to place traps at just about every entrance. The mountain beaver are very blind and need to stumble into a trap (which hopefully you’ve baited with cut slices of apple).

I don’t know of any natural enemy to the mountain beavers: perhaps coyotes, which are common in the area.

Best regards,

Mooney252