[NatureNS] muskrat or beaver or porcupine

Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 16:27:36 -0300
From: Stephen Shaw <srshaw@Dal.Ca>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
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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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