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Beavers are cutting trees, building dams and transforming waterways across the Mount Vernon area. While their activity can frustrate homeowners, wildlife advocate Alison Zak says the animals also improve water quality, protect wetlands and create valuable habitats.

“Beavers matter,” Zak told an Oct. 22 Zoom presentation hosted by several Northern Virginia environmental groups. Zak, founder of the Human Beaver Co-existence Fund, urged residents to reconsider the idea that beavers are simply pests.

Their dams and ponds slow moving water, reduce harmful sedimentation and help wetlands absorb flooding. Beaver activity can also restore freshwater systems, recharge groundwater, encourage plant growth and increase biodiversity.

Beavers Move Into Local Neighborhoods

Beavers generally settle near dependable water sources with plenty of woody vegetation nearby. Several Mount Vernon-area communities provide exactly that environment.

Williamsburg Manor resident Greg Crider said beavers have lived in Little Hunting Creek for decades. They emerge from Colonel John Byers Park and enter yards along William and Mary Drive, where they chew vegetation. They have also taken down trees and shrubs near the neighborhood entrance on Collingwood Road.

In Stratford Landing, beavers have long built dams and lodges in the creek, according to Betsy Martin, president of the Friends of Little Hunting Creek. One crossed Thomas Stockton Parkway, which runs alongside part of the creek, and gnawed through large branches on the opposite side.

Residents have also seen signs of beavers in Hollin Hall Village near Lafayette Drive and the community swimming pool. Leo Milanowski, president of the Hollin Hall Village Citizen Association, said trees were felled this year and large trunks bore extensive gnawing marks. The animals ventured beyond the woods and into nearby yards.

Area resident Karen Stein said beavers have been active near her home since 2022, cutting trees and bushes. This year, they brought down a pear tree in a neighbor’s yard.

Beavers have periodically occupied Dyke Marsh as well. During the spring, some River Towers Condominium residents could see them in the western portion of the preserve from their windows. The animals constructed a lodge and dam, but the dam was breached during the summer for an unknown reason.

North America’s Largest Rodent

Beavers are the continent’s largest rodents and can live into their twenties. Zak said their ancestors date back at least 1 million years.

Their diet consists primarily of herbaceous vegetation and woody and aquatic plants. They use sticks, branches and mud to construct lodges, usually in the water with entrances below the surface. Some also inhabit riverbanks, particularly along large river systems where the water is deep or fast-moving.

Beavers are built for life on land and in water. They have broad tails that can slap the water, digging claws and webbed hind feet that function like flippers. Coyotes, bobcats, bears, raptors and humans are among their predators.

The primarily nocturnal animals typically live in colonies containing four to eight related beavers. A colony’s home range covers about eight acres, according to the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources.

Fur Trade Nearly Wiped Them Out

North America had an estimated 12 million to 14 million beavers before the 1600s. Their population collapsed after the fur trade expanded in the mid-1600s and demand for pelts grew in America and Europe.

At the trade’s peak, the continent’s beaver population fell to an estimated 100,000.

Virginia’s beavers were nearly eliminated by the early 1900s. Wildlife managers began reintroducing them during the 1930s, and the animals have since returned to much of their historic territory. Zak said most trapping today is conducted in response to beavers considered a nuisance.

Protecting Property Without Killing Beavers

Most conflicts with beavers involve felled trees or flooding. Their large teeth allow them to cut trees for food and materials used in dams and lodges.

Zak said the most practical way to protect an individual tree is to surround it with beaver fencing or a metal cage. She recommends four-foot-tall, 14-gauge welded wire with mesh openings measuring two inches by four inches.

Other nonlethal management options include pond levelers, water-flow devices and culvert fences. Relocating beavers is not legal in Virginia, Zak said.

The animals can rapidly remake a familiar landscape, but Zak argued that their ability to create change is part of their value.