Cottage Trees & Plants by Cottage Life

Author:Cottage Life [Cottage Life]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-9880666-4-9
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2012-08-27T16:00:00+00:00

Trouble With Beavers

Our cottage on Gloucester Pool has been in the family for 40 years. The oak trees have been there for many more years. After all this time, the beavers have decided to start chewing the bark off the trees. What can we do to protect the trees without hurting the beavers? We have to do something; two of the trees are where we hang our daughter’s swing. More importantly, the other two trees are for the hammock!

—Kent and Sydney Weale, Mississauga, Ont.

Consider yourself lucky. Beavers usually chew right through a tree but, since your oaks are still standing, MNR biologist Jan McDonnell speculates that the beavers worked their way through the bark and found the wood underneath to be too hard. Oak isn’t normally a favourite tree of beavers, she notes. They usually prefer softer species such as poplar, red maple, and white birch.

Since your goal is to protect a few valued individual trees, the best solution is to wrap the base of the trees loosely with chicken wire, hardware cloth, or sheet metal. You can remove the protective cover if and when the beavers move on. —June 1997

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.