I've done a little searching and it turns out some people keep beavers for pets. They are quite friendly and follow the owners around. They enjoy being petted and groomed and since they are not predators like cats and dogs, biting is very rare. Those teeth are for your table legs. If you leave them alone in the house they chop up the IKEA furniture and plug the toilet with it. Then they build the den in the bathtub with expensive family heirlooms. I'm not kidding about this, don't do it
So I'm going to have mine in a special naturalized enclosure with a chain-link
fence buried deep
enough that escape is impossible. I'll strategically place the beaver
pond so that it can be viewed by visitors to the bed-and-breakfast and by those visiting the public Park section of the property. The enclosure will contain dry
land and a deep
pond since beavers must have this to construct a home and feel secure in their environment. Tame beavers often try to run off and it's always because they are searching for the type of environment which is natural to their species.
The reason I'm doing this is twofold. Firstly – I want some unique animals for people to look at when they come to my bed and breakfast/nature Park. We get plenty of international visitors, many of whom associate Canada with beavers. They are very tough to sneak up on in the wild so most people go home having seen the dam but no sign of the beavers other than stumps and woodchips. So the beavers will serve a purpose as a draw card to my property.
But every creature needs a job. My land has plenty of Cottonwood, Maple and Alder which constantly needs thinning. Beavers will do better on this than with the artificial pellets being fed by some owners. My resource is available year-round. I won't turn beavers loose on this since they would certainly destroy the wrong
trees. I've already piled 150 m³ for
hugelkultur beds. Most are in quite long lengths since they were handled with an excavator. At some point in the future I'd like to use beavers to process some of this
wood. Quite often they strip the bark off larger logs but don't process them further. These logs could be snatched out of the enclosure and would make unique building elements and souvenirs for my guests. I've incorporated beaver wood into rock gardens and I've seen one used as a walking cane. They are all one of a kind.
One man with a large forest in central BC used his beavers to debark cottonwood and aspen logs before hauling them to the paper mill. Debarked logs are worth more and trucking is more efficient since only useful wood makes the trip. The Ministry of the environment wouldn't give him a permit to build a dam to ensure that he had
water during the dry season so he dropped the beavers in that location and gave them dozens of Cottonwood tops. Problem solved, dam built. Since his beavers run wild he's found it necessary to control their numbers through trapping and to constantly bring them logging waste so they don't cut down all of his riverside trees. I read about his adventures more than 10 years ago and have been enamored with the idea ever since. The story was in a farm
magazine and was chiefly concerned with how he got around the no dam rule.
I hope to one day cover up to 2 acres in hugelkulture beds so there will be a constant need for more chopped up wood. And other areas of the farm will benefit from the
compost from spent beds.
The quantity of wood required for all of this far exceeds what is available from my land so I'm actively seeking landscapers in the
city, which is only 8 miles away who can bring me all of their waste from deciduous trees and other landscaping compostables. Between the beavers, goats and the pigs this material will be well utilized and processed before being piled up to build beds. This
should make for quick decomposition and well fed and exercised animals. Everybody wins.
I'm sure there will be those who feel it's cruel to take beavers from their natural habitat, and this may be so. But in many areas they are legally considered vermin and trappers are licensed to clear them where they plug ditches and culverts. I won't be capturing any beavers from the national Park, I'll get them from one of these trappers. Since there is very little money in fur anymore these trappers charge a fee for removal and then the carcasses are used for dog food. Any beaver used on my property will be one who has escaped this fate and they will live in a petting zoo type atmosphere free from predators. Definitely the lesser evil.