Understanding the creatures’ sensory abilities isn’t just an academic question: In one 1990 study, scientists in upstate New York used manmade scent mounds to manipulate the establishment of wild beaver families. Castoreum has some applications in the world of humans, though contrary to the claims of the Food Babe, there is virtually no chance that “beaver butt” flavors your vanilla ice cream. (Incidentally, don’t confuse beavers’ anal glands with their castor sacs, oil-producing organs that beavers use to map their territory and waterproof their fur. Each beaver has a distinct, fingerprint-like scent, which the animals use to identify relatives - three generations typically share a single lodge - and mark “scent mounds,” piles of leaves, mud and sticks that delineate the domain of individual colonies. Beavers have poor eyesight, which means they experience the world primarily through their noses (their hearing is excellent, too). While glandular discharges aid the efforts of beaver relocators like Weber, they’re also fundamental to the lives of the rodents themselves. I felt a touch lightheaded, and wondered if the Food and Drug Administration had ever seen reason to ban the use of beaver glands as a narcotic. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was powerful. Indeed, a single anal secretion may contain upwards of 100 different chemical compounds. But the bouquet also contained notes of overripe fruit, pet store interior, dead muskrat, paint, and countless other olfactory sensations. I took the tissue and, against my better judgment, inhaled deeply. According to a recent genetic analysis, the Methow Project has misidentified the gender of just one beaver since it began using the glandular technique. “Once you’ve done five, you can pretty well tell,” Weber assured me. If you smelled old cheese, you had a Sally on your hands. The odor provided another diagnostic key. Males, she explained, excreted darker, thicker fluid than females. Weber held up the tissue, blotched with hard-won scent secretion. Dale’s ordeal at the inexpert hands of a journalist had, mercifully, concluded. (From the Beaver Restoration Guidebook: “Obviously this procedure should be done with your face a reasonable distance from the cloaca, with your mouth shut.”) Weber swooped in to wipe up the mess. With a whispered apology to Dale, I applied additional pressure on his glands, which poured forth a viscous stream of caramel beaver juice. To me the experience seemed more akin to a hazing ritual. The scientists seemed to think they were offering me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “Be careful where you position yourself,” called Torre Stockard, another scientist, from behind the safety of a fence. Weber encouraged me to squeeze a bit harder. A drop of amber liquid glistened on one tip, and I dabbed at it gingerly. Not even the sharpest-eyed matchmaker can reliably tell the sexes apart - at least not visually.īeneath my fumbling, Latex-wrapped fingers, the scent glands - angry twin volcanos of pinkish flesh - popped from the cloaca. A male beaver’s cloaca looks almost exactly like a female’s. Instead, the creatures possess cloacas - fleshy vents, analogous to the anatomy of birds and reptiles, that do triple duty in the departments of waste disposal, scent secretion, and, yes, reproduction. That’s where the critters make matters difficult.īeavers, you see, lack familiar mammalian plug-and-socket genitalia. Of course, to set up Harry with Sally, you have to know who’s Harry and who’s Sally. In between live-trapping and release, the Project houses its wards at the Winthrop National Fish Hatchery, where males and females form pair-bonds that help them better survive in the wild. There, the buck-toothed engineers construct salmon-sheltering wetlands, recharge groundwater and create habitat for wildlife from salamanders to moose. The Methow Project, as I reported this month for High Country News, captures tree-felling, ditch-clogging nuisance beavers in eastern Washington and relocates them to public lands in the Cascades.
That question might sound like the set-up to a raunchy punchline, but for the Methow Valley Beaver Project, it’s a pressing concern. Pop quiz for all you amateur wildlife biologists: How do you determine the sex of a beaver? Like Tweet Email Print Subscribe Donate Now
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