Beaver Kills Man in Belarus

Kind of cute isn't he?

The tragic incident stemmed from the man’s love of photography: He and his two fishermen friends spotted the animal walking down a country road and decided to take a picture with it, local media reported.

The beaver was complacent at first, but suddenly snapped and attacked one of the fishers, biting him on the thigh deeply enough to cut through the femoral artery...

Story here

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What is it with tourists that just have to have their picture taken with those cuddly looking bears, deer, elk, beaver, (insert (possibly rabid) animal here)?  The fellow with the beaver bite and his friends unfortunately didn't know enough first aid to put on a tourniquet and he didn't make it. 

Somehow I doubt the wisdom of getting close and personal with a critter that can chop down a pretty large tree over night, small as it may be when compared with a bear.

Hello nice bear!

While I am on the subject, I must confess that I have had very little luck with acquiring the makings of my beaver hat. 

I will try again on the 7th when they are celebrating and perhaps catch them unaware.

Some people like them. 

Some people eat them!

I would just like them to all move elsewhere. 

beaver and elk

This was a few weeks ago, but I thought it was an interesting photo of a couple of cows in the air.  

I got some videos of the herd off of one of the cameras today, but they are mostly washed out  night time shots of some bulls snorting, licking, and blowing on the camera. It is not the camera with the "black" infrared flash, and they are attracted to it, especially when the camera is set for video, as the flash is then on for a long time.

This is a small dam they have started on the overflow ditch to the second pond. They built it last night.  I tore it out today. The rock on the left is almost the size of my head. The last dam they built here was full of these rocks. I think they add them to hold down things as they are building. I haven't had any luck with my traps and snares yet. I'm still learning and they are staying ahead of me, except for one small beaver I found floating dead in the last dam they started. I don't know what killed him, it wasn't me. So far the water has stayed down below the hole they made in my dam, thanks to the US Fish & Wildlife folks that brought a track hoe and cleaned out the over flow ditch. As long as I keep clearing the beaver's construction projects, I think my dam will hold until summer when we can repair it. All this help is due to the pond turtle population here. 

Some mostly recent photos of life here!

Elk by the north dam

From the front porch

Daisy as a pup (on the bottom)

Western pond turtle who found his way into my basement

Elk by the center dam

more elk

a bear looking around

fog

More beaver or maybe not!

My first experience as a beaver trapper ended poorly today when I checked the four traps I set out yesterday. Not one beaver. There were, however, tracks in the mud at the other end of the dam where I didn't set any. Oh well, I should probably give it more than one day. I sort of expected to see at least four caught this morning.
I'm pretty sure we set them correctly, it's a pretty big area and they probably just haven't found them yet.

Starting in on some small trees below the my dam.

The overflow beaver dam that started the war.

Here's a photo I took of some swimming around laughing at me earlier.

I've seen them on the bank & yes they are beaver, not nutria. Although I wouldn't be surprised to catch some nutria as I have in the past in other ponds here.