Date/time: Nov 9, 2025 (approx 4pm)

Place: Korthright Rd, Guelph ON. See the map below.

Observation: five minutes from my home in an urban area of the south end of Guelph, I noticed fallen aspen trees in the fenced in drainage pond on the edge of Kortright Rd.

A closer look revealed that it was clearly caused by a beaver.

Now this surprised me because this small drainage pond is far from any larger bodies of water, or a river. However, it is on the edge of a wetland that connects to Preservation Park. The wetland is dominated by cattails (Typha spp.), Common Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) and a very tall grass species that I need to look up. The edges of this wetland area has a variety of tree species, for example willow and aspen.

I was curious how the beaver had got into this pond as it seemed to be completely enclosed by a chain-link fence. However, walking around the pond I found the likely entry point of the beaver(s).

I looked for hairs attached to the fence, but didn’t find any. But close to the fence were two beaver chews.

The first chew is on an aspen, but the second is on a buckthorn tree. Do beavers eat buckthorn? It appears they do not, see:

Knight, K., Kurylo, S., Endress, J., Stewart, A., & Reich, G. (2007). Ecology and ecosystem impacts of common buckthorn ( Rhamnus cathartica ): A review. Biological Invasions, 9(8), 925-937.

But a beaver had clearly harvested this buckthorn tree, so if it wasn’t for food, perhaps it was gathered as building material for its lodge.

I then stood near the fence and observed a beaver swimming on the surface of the water. I have seen muskrat before which are smaller and have a hairless snake-like tail trailing behind, but this animal had a flat tail and was bigger. Clearly a beaver! Because of the fence I could not get very close, so these pictures are not great.

These observations raise numerous questions:

• Is it common for beaver to be so far from larger bodies of water?
• Is the beaver I observed building a lodge in this pond, or just staching trees for food in the Winter?
• Do beaver ever eat buckthorn?
• How many beaver are active in this pond?