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Index of Subjects 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 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.169 / Virus Database: 270.7.0/1680 - Release Date: 9/19/2008 8:25 AM
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