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Dam Builders: The Natural History Of Beavers And Their Ponds

Author : Michael Runtz
Published : 2015-07-01

Author Michael Runtz makes it clear right up front: he is not a biologist, but a naturalist. And his new book, Dam Builders: The Natural History of Beavers and Their Ponds, published by Fitzhenry and Whtieside, is the better for it. Beaver are fascinating and unusual animals, and this book gives an in-depth look at their behavior in 254 pages, with over 400 remarkable photographs, in a gorgeous square layout. This is a comprehensive book on beaver, including rarely seen and described behavior.

Want to know exactly how a beaver uses its teeth to cut through solid wood like an ax? Runtz describes in detail how a beaver uses only one side of its mouth, one tooth at a time, combined with its powerful temporalis muscles to fell a tree. Did you know that their teeth never stop growing, and are self-sharpening? And that their flat tail not only signals danger, but is used to shed heat in the summer, and store food for the winter? Anyone who has been startled in the forest by the loud crack of their tail hitting the water will never forget it.

Runtz also writes of the many organisms that depend upon the beaver, including butterflies, moose, rodents, and snakes. The biodiversity in their ponds is astounding, and he provides photographs to prove it, from dragonflies, to birds, to gnats. There's a keen insight into what happens to the flooded forests, and how that too provides homes to herons and woodpeckers.

The book answers questions most people don't anticipate. For example, where do beaver sleep until their lodge is complete? Anywhere that's protected is the answer. And did you know that when they breathe, they replace 75% of their lung's oxygen, where as humans only replace 15%?

Beaver have four main activities: sleeping, eating, grooming, and dam building, the latter being their trademark. You will read how they use mud, sticks, vegetation, and stones to make their ponds, with their centerpiece lodge. And they can range in size and shape. The record dam length in Alberta spans over 2,700 feet, and in Wyoming a dam is over 18 feet tall!

There's a wonderful chapter where the author also describes in depth what becomes of abandoned lodges, dams, and ponds as they eventually fill in with sediments, and terrestrial sedges and grasses take over the former aquatic realm. The history of the beaver's use by man is well presented, including their near-extinction during the American fur-trade years.

This is a wonderful insight into a most fascinating animal, one that is as busy as, well, you know what.

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