Do the trees beavers cut down ever fall on and squish the beavers?
A. Hardly ever, though youd think it would happen a lot. Youd think that cutting down trees with your teeth would make the trees fall on your head, kablam! But digging through the science files turns up only two reports. In 1953, a Vermont professor described a beaver caught and killed by a split-in-half tree trunk: It appears that while the beaver was attempting to free the base of the trunk … the top shifted, causing the gaping halves of the trunk to clamp vise-like the animals head. (Ach, the poor beaver.) In 1989, The Canadian Field-Naturalist reported a beaver crushed by a poplar tree: The beaver may have misjudged where the tree would fall, or another beaver could have been cutting it. (Newman!) Fortunately, most beavers know what theyre doing, have better luck or both. Beaver deaths caused by felled trees, the second report says, do not appear to be a common occurrence. Twig P.S. Beavers are rodents the biggest in North America and the second-biggest on the planet. Notes: Sour
