During the past few years since I first noticed the beavers mentioned earlier, beavers have been making a dramatic comeback to the mountains of Western North Carolina. Evidently the beavers in our area have moved in naturally through the river drainage systems and are now busy reclaiming their ancestral homes. To me these animals symbolize the great wilderness that was here many years ago and a time that we have lost sight of. The beaver is actually an aquatic rodent which makes its living in still or slow-moving waters. Beavers will live in naturally occurring ponds or lakes but often dam up streams, small rivers, and other waterways to create a pond where they can easily swim and transport the sticks and branches they need for dam building and for food.
Beavers often build their dams in places that cause problems for people.
Man-made culverts are often stuffed full of sticks and other debris by beavers, backing up water and sometimes causing flooding over roadways and bridges. The beaver's habit of building dams for its uses often interferes with man's uses of the land when valuable timber is flooded or agricultural cropland suddenly winds up underwater. A beaver's main food supply is the inner bark layer of trees and shrubs called the cambium. Beavers cut down many trees and shrubs to get to this food supply as well as to supply themselves with construction materials for their dams. When beavers live close to people, they sometimes target valuable orchard or ornamental trees for their own use, much to the dismay of the human residents.