National Wildlife Federation<\/a>, there is significant reason to believe that beavers chew the tree in specific patterns to make it fall in a certain direction. <\/p>\n\n\n\nFor example, if a beaver is trying to make the tree fall downhill toward a body of water, it will chew around the tree in a diagonal pattern, with the higher angle of the cut being uphill and the lower angle facing the water.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThis behavior could simply be based on instinct or the natural movement of the beaver as it chews the tree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But whether they can intentionally drop a tree in a specific direction or not, beavers are able to hear when a tree is starting to fall. The sounds of the wood cracking may give them clues about the direction the tree will fall, and the beaver will simply waddle out of the way as the tree topples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How Do Beavers Move Trees?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Beavers are large rodents, but they don\u2019t appear particularly large or strong, so it\u2019s hard to imagine a single beaver dragging a large, mature tree through the forest. Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beavers can move as much as their own body weight, but not much more. This gives them the ability to drag saplings and medium-sized branches, but not fully grown trees.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nTo move larger trees, beavers have to section them into smaller pieces, cutting them down to size until each section is light enough for them to move. If the tree is large enough, it may take several beavers in one family working on it over a period of days or weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once the tree has been divided into smaller sections, the beaver will grab each section in its mouth, dragging them one at a time to wherever it plans to use them–usually a lodge or a dam.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nWhy Do Beavers Chew Big Trees?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Beavers don\u2019t prefer chewing on larger trees, but they will use whatever is available to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If they\u2019ve used up all of the smaller trees and saplings in their area, they will resort to using bigger trees. The bigger trees take much longer to chew through and may require the help of several beavers in a colony.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nBeavers may also chew on trees, both large and small, to remove some of the bark or cambium layer for food. In these cases, the beavers are not trying to take the tree down; they are simply chewing on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Beavers cut down trees to build dams and lodges. They have exceptionally strong teeth that grow continuously<\/a> and need to be maintained by regularly chewing on trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt takes much longer for beavers to cut down large trees, but they have been known to take down trees over 30 inches in diameter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you think of beavers, you probably think of the impressive dams they build out of logs and tree branches. Are these dams the only reason beavers chew on wood? Exactly why do beavers cut down trees, how do they do it, and how do they move the trees where they want them to go? … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestwildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9499"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestwildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestwildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestwildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestwildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9499"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestwildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9515,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestwildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9499\/revisions\/9515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestwildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestwildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestwildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestwildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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