finding Beavers in Denver

4/7/2019

Hoping to spot a beaver this International Beaver Day? Here are a few tips and tricks for searching in the Denver area!

Where do beavers like to live?
While beavers live both in and out of water, they greatly prefer to spend their time in the water. The South Platte River and its tributaries are great places to look for beavers!

What are some signs of beavers?
When looking for beavers, you’ll want to keep an eye out for some of the many markings they leave behind. A few of the most common ones to see are:

Beaver Chew: Beavers chew trees for food as well as to construct their dams and lodges. Beaver chew is one of the easiest ways to see if there’s a beaver around. Look for rough teeth marks in trees or stumps to figure out if a beaver has been nearby. Another way to tell is to look for beaver fences and beaver paint. Humans can prevent beavers from chomping down trees by erecting a short fence or by painting a mixture of mud and sand around the trunk of a tree.

Tracks: Beavers have two distinct sets of tracks: their hind tracks are 6-7 inches long and show webbed toes whereas the front tracks are 2-3 inches long and show claw marks. When searching for beaver tracks, beware! A beaver dragging its tail can often disturb the tracks it leaves behind.

Scat: Look for beaver scat on the water's edge. It tends to be small, cylindrical, and about 1.5- to 2.5-inches long. Due to a beaver’s diet, dry scat should also have a sawdust-like appearance when you break it apart.

Dams/Lodges: Beavers are some of nature’s most iconic engineers. Beavers build dams to slow or stop moving water so they can build their homes. Their homes (called lodges) are intricate structures that, from the outside, can simply look like a large pile of sticks. Keep an eye out in our waterways for these amazing structures!

Beaver dam

Beaver lodge

When can I see a beaver?
Beavers are crepuscular, meaning they are most active at dawn and dusk. Your best chance at seeing a beaver is to scope out a spot where you have found signs of a beaver and come very early in the morning or just when the sun is setting. Who knows, you may even spot Chompers!

3 Comments

Scott Hatfield

12/30/2019 11:22:24 am

Beavers are excellent tools for enhancing resiliency. Wetland restoration provides flooding and stormwater control, aquifer recharging, drought mitigation, biodiversity, fire resistance,ecological and riparian restoration, and more.
With all of Denver's current major problems with stormwater control and green spaces, it should not be difficult to financially justify an aggressive wetland restoration and enhancement policy for Denver. Grey infrastructure is much more expensive than green infrastructure. Beavers need to be seen as important providers of ecological services rather than pests. Beaver human interactions can be reasonably mitigated with tools such as levelers and culvert protectors with relocation due to population growth as a part of a larger strategy. Do you have info on the suitability of the Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool (BRAT) for Denver? Boulder had some issues with it.

steve martin

7/12/2021 06:47:51 pm

Where in the Denver or Evergreen or Beaver Creek area can you see beaver activity? My wife and I are visiting from Texas and we would like to try and get some early morning or dusk photos of beavers. Can you make any suggestions? Thanks so much!

Dave Perry link

7/16/2021 07:46:14 pm

There are beaver at the confluence of Clear Creek and the South Platte River. Take the Platte Trail north from Denver. When you come out fo the viaduct just south of the confluence, there's a foot/trail bridge over Clear Creek. The confluence is just a few hundred yards from there. There are numerous pools and I spotted a large beaver there last weekend about 6:30 a.m., lazily swimming to the bridge. I didn't see a lodge anywhere. I've seen beaver there and just upstream on many occasions over the years. Lots of pool areas upstream about a half mile.

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