[NatureNS] Muskrat versus beaver diet choices

From: "Roland McCormick" <roland.mccormick@ns.sympatico.ca>
To: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
References: <20080920023406.hvaqerp41w80k40w@my5.dal.ca>
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:59:04 -0300
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Interesting. I think it unlikely that it was a beaver. I have always thought 
they prefer wood. One animal  you might want to rule out is a porcupine. I 
have had problems in my raspberry plants with them. They will attack a 
raspberry plant and chew off an inch or two, then move on and chew off an 
inch or two of a second one, and so on until they have caused considerable 
damage. Often if you find a wild patch of raspberries you will find a 
porcupine in the patch eating this same way.

Roland.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen Shaw" <srshaw@dal.ca>
To: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2008 2:34 AM
Subject: [NatureNS] Muskrat versus beaver diet choices


> We live on Chocolate Lake in Halifax, and during our time the garden has 
> always
> had a multi-stalked rose bush growing within a couple of feet of the lake 
> edge.
> This was trained up high over a tree and has (or had) six sturdy woody 
> stems
> each about 1 inch thick: it must have been growing there for 20+ years.
> A couple of days ago I noticed that most of the leaves on the rose were
> shrivelled and dying, and traced this back to find that 5 of the 6 stems
> appeared to have been hacked through with a machete, probably about a week
> earlier.  After thinking dark misanthropic thoughts, on closer inpection 
> there
> were some striations on the hacks and the two ends of each hack didn't 
> seem to
> match.  It looked as if short sections had been removed by something with 
> teeth
> -- looks like a rodent did it.  This urban lake doesn't look like prime 
> beaver
> habitat and I've never seen or heard of one living or visiting locally on 
> the
> lake, but at least one muskrat has lived here for some years and is still
> around.
>
> Question: this muskrat regularly chews off nearby soft plant shoots 
> (lilies?)
> that grow directly out of the lake near the edge.  I thought that muskrats
> exclusively subsist on such soft diet material and don't go after woody 
> shrubs
> or trees in the manner of a beaver.  Is this correct, or could the muskrat 
> be a
> possible culprit for the woody rose incident?
> Steve
>


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