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Index of Subjects Hi Billy, Roland, Andy, any others terrorized by large rodents... Thanks for the replies, and until just now a porcupine did sound like the most likely option of those on offer. I hadn't considered it as we hardly ever see one, but then their nocturnal habits could account for that. The roses were less than two feet in from the lake edge and only about one foot above the usual waterline, though, which is why I originally suspected an amphibious assault. Just now we've checked the waterline more carefully. Near the site of the rose outrage there's an old patch of scrubby alder that sticks out into the lake, branches of which have rooted into the lake too. It's very shallow there with medium sized rocks sticking up near the surface. About a dozen alder branches ranging from about an inch in diameter on down to 1/4 inch have been cut off neatly, some close to the waterline but others higher. Most of the diagonal cuts are directed such as to suggest that the animal was floating, or standing on a rock in the lake while gnawing away. The smaller branches were cut off neatly in one go, suggesting a quite large animal. One of the cut ends is about two feet above the water surface, and it would have taken an animal bigger than a muskrat reaching up to drag it down and cut it off. None of the upper alder branches were touched and from the direction of the cuts it doesn't look as if anything was perched up there gnawing downwards -- indeed, a porcupine would have a hard time balancing over the lake to get at some of the finer ends that were cut through. Only four of the branches were still floating around but the rest could have floated off down the lake. None of the cuts look absolutely new, so could have been made at the time the rose stems were cut. So I think the new evidence means that it couldn't have been either a muskrat or a porcupine, and that the only possibility is Billy's original suggestion -- it must have been a beaver. We hope it was just shooting through and is not sticking around. Chocolate Lake is almost completely surrounded by development with no open inlet stream access, and is fed largely by run-off and by a buried inlet pipe coming from a stream and another lake further up. It doesn't look like an easy commute in either direction for a beaver: the lake outlet is a small weir feeding into a stream that runs under Herring Cove Road, then empties a sort distance away into the sea at the Northwest Arm. Steve Quoting bdigout@seaside.ns.ca: > Earlier, I sent a reply indicating beaver... If Chocolate Lake was in > Cape Breton, then beaver would have been the only choice; since we > have no porcupines. > Because only muskrat and beaver were mentioned, was there any > indication the culprit came from the water, or was there no visible > sign of directionality? > Billy >
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