14 Facts About Beaver

Beaver start building dams when they hear running water, and the sound of a leak in a dam triggers them to repair it.

Beaver dams are more effective in trapping and slowly leaking water than man-made concrete dams.

Beaver lodges built by new settlers are typically small and sloppy.

Beaver ponds act as a refuge for water bank plants during wildfires and provide them with enough moisture to resist such fires.

Beaver floodings create more dead trees, providing more habitat for terrestrial invertebrates like Drosophila flies and bark beetles, which live and breed in dead wood.

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Beaver ponds have been shown to be beneficial to frog populations by protecting areas for larvae to mature in warm water.

Beaver-caused ice thawing in northern latitudes allows Canada geese to nest earlier.

Beaver stated it could stop hiccups when mixed with vinegar, toothaches if mixed with oil and administered into the ear opening on the same side as the tooth, and could be used as an antivenom.

Beaver meat was advantageous, being more calorie-rich and fattened than other red meats, and the animals remained plump in winter, when they were most hunted.

Beaver tails were thus highly prized in Europe and were described by French naturalist Pierre Belon as tasting like a "nicely dressed eel".

Beaver pelts were used to make hats; felters would remove the guard hairs.

Beaver pelts were valuable enough to cause or contribute to the Beaver Wars, King William's War and the French and Indian War.

Beaver has been used to represent productivity, trade, tradition, masculinity and respectability.

Beaver has long been associated with Canada, appearing on the first pictorial postage stamp issued in the Canadian colonies in 1851—the so-called "Three-Penny Beaver".