Can beavers live to be 30 years old?
The beaver’s life is crowded with sensible chores and dutiful family co operation. Such a model character deserves to live a century but, as a rule, he lives no longer than 10 or 12 years. The oldest beavers on record have lived to celebrate no more than 19 or 20 birthdays. A young beaver is born on an island centered in the family pond. The island is a high and dry lodge roofed over with a sturdy dome of sticks and stones expertly patted together with mud. The cozy floor is strewn with soft grasses and finely shredded bark and junior shares his island lodge with perhaps seven other beaver kittens. For the first month of life, their only visitor is their big, warm mother who lovingly feeds them, washes them and combs their furry coats. The only door to the lodge is a hole in the living room floor that leads to an underwater tunnel. When junior is about a month old, Mrs. Beaver coaxes him down the dark, wet tunnel and out into the family pond. One by one, the roly poly beaver kittens ar
