Several weeks ago, our Director of Hospital Operations/Practice Manager Trey discovered an injured beaver on the side of the road at White Rock Lake spillway. With the help of some Good Samaritans, Trey was able to get the beaver to the clinic for the evening to get her warmed up (it was one of the nights where it was almost freezing!) until he could get a hold of a Wildlife Rehabilitator.
The next morning, with the help from the DFW Wildlife Coalition hotline (http://dfwwildlife.org/), we were able to get in contact with a local rehabilitator who could give us some additional information about how to treat injuries from what appeared to have been caused by a fight with another beaver. With the rehabilitator’s advice, we were also able evaluate her a little more thoroughly, figure out her approximate age and, based on x-rays, her gender.
We were able to get her treated, under anesthesia, and mended up. We got her on some pain medications and antibiotics and were able to get her released back to her normal home within a few days!
We wanted to take this opportunity to highlight the incredible work of the DFW Wildlife Coalition, a group of volunteers that help people when they find orphaned or injured wildlife. If you find injured wildlife, call the DFW Wildlife Coalition FIRST – it is important that only licensed or experienced rehabilitators handle wildlife.
We wanted to also share a little information about beavers that we learned from this experience:
- Beavers are nocturnal so they are generally only out at night.
- Beavers generally do not move great distances. They try to stay in the same areas, so it is important to try to return them to their original area when they have gotten misplaced. Most of the time we are not able to get them back to their original environments due to construction or demolition.
- Beavers generally live in families (another reason to try to return them to their original habitats).
- Beavers have lifelong mates and generally the couple will have a 3rd adult beaver, male or female (aunt or uncle) that stays with the couple to help raise the family or colony.
- The first set of kits (baby beavers) will stay around to help raise the 2nd litter of kits.
- Once the beavers are sexually mature, generally after 18 months old or so, they will venture off to try to find a mate… in some cases they will fight with other beavers that are out looking for the same thing (probably what happened with our beaver).
- Beavers like to eat local trees (mainly the green ones and leaves) they prefer willow trees when possible.
Thank you very much to the DFW Wildlife Coalition for your help in returning this sweet girl to her home!