The freshwater mammals shown below have all, at one time or another, been an important economic factor within the province. Hunting these mammals is still carried out on a small commercial scale, the annual fall moose hunt being the most popular. The muskrat is a semiaquatic rodent found in freshwater and saltwater marshes. Muskrats live in a network of burrows in the banks of waterways or build houses of mounded vegetation in open water.
Beavers are large, aquatic, partly nocturnal rodents.
They are known for their construction of dams, as well as the lodges they live in. Beavers feed on marsh grasses, roots, barks and twigs. Like all rodents, the beavers chisellike front teeth continually grow enabling them to knaw down large trees. Once overtrapped for its fur until it was confined to a far western habitat, the beaver has now returned to eastern regions. The mink was brought to Newfoundland to be farmed around 1935.