Dam, that Beaver didn’t stand a chance…
Yes, that was a beaver pun, and no, I’m not necessarily proud of it…
But instead of dwelling over it, let’s move on to the story at hand, which doesn’t end well for the beaver.
Researchers that are a part of the Voyaguers Wolf Project had set up this trail camera (along with many others) to try and track wolf pack movement in the area.
It’s well known that wolves are predators to beavers, but video proof of wolves attacking the dam-building animals is actually rather scarce.
After almost capturing a wolf grabbing a beaver right off of its dam earlier in the year, the researchers were excited to see that their trail camera finally got the video they really wanted.
The caption for the video that they posted on their YouTube channel stated:
“The absolute trail camera jackpot—we just captured the second known video ever, as far we are aware, of a wolf attacking and killing a beaver.
And this was a pretty sizable beaver too! How amazing is that!?”
Well, not so amazing for the beaver, if you could ask it how it felt about the whole thing…
The wolf hunt happened right in the dead of the night earlier this month when the beaver left the safety of the water to traverse a trail in the woods. Not long after it got on the trail, the wolves were all over it, and the odds are survival were not looking great.
You’ve got to give some credit to the beaver because it really put up a fight against the wolf, though it was vastly overmatched. The trail cam captures the initial struggle, and then the beaver and wolf both move out of the frame of the shot.
19 hours or so afterwards, the trail camera captured the same wolf it had before holding the decapitated head of the beaver in its mouth. Nature is incredibly gnarly, and I’m guessing the wolf was carrying around the remaining portion of the beaver as a trophy of some sort.
The caption below the video went on to speak on the beaver’s chance of survival, saying:
“The beaver put up a valiant fight and at a few points was only a few meters from the safety of water. If the beaver could have just freed itself for a few moments, it might have lived.
But it couldn’t…there appears to be a thin margin for beavers between life and death when on land!”
Where does decapitation fall on the scale of life and death? Because that’s what happened to the poor beaver…
Take a look:
