SHARE
COPY LINK

KRISTIANSAND

Timber! Beaver crushed by tree it was felling

A beaver in Norway has been crushed to death after misjudging which way the tree it was gnawing down was going to fall.

Timber! Beaver crushed by tree it was felling
The unlucky beaver trapped under a birch. Photo: Beate Strøm Johansen
Beate Strøm Johansen, a Zoologist at the Agder Natural History museum in Kristiansand on the southern tip of Norway, was called to the scene after a local logger stumbled upon the unfortunate animal. 
 
“This beaver has been extremely unlucky,” she told The Local. “I hope it’s not something that happens very often for the beavers' sake.” 
 
Johansen said that beavers normally have an uncanny ability to predict when and where a tree is likely to fall. 
 
“When the tree is falling they have to jump aside so the tree doesn’t hit them. Instinctively, they should know where it is falling, but sometimes they don’t know which way to jump,” she explained. 
 
“Sometimes there’s a strong wind and the tree doesn’t fall where the beaver thinks it's going to fall.” 
 
Leif Hægeland, the logger who found the beaver said he had never seen a beaver caught out like this in his 25 years in working as a woodsman. 
 
“I have seen many beavers, but I have never seen such a thing,” he told Norway’s state-run broadcaster NRK. 
 
Beavers sometimes fell trees to provide logs to dam the rivers where they live, and sometimes for tree bark and cambium tissue to eat. 
 
In 2014, another beaver was found starved to death in southern Norway, after its tail was trapped under a fallen tree.

ENVIRONMENT

Dane loses to state in appeal case over beaver damage

A landowner in rural Denmark has failed in a bid to win compensation for damage caused to his property by gnawing beavers.

Dane loses to state in appeal case over beaver damage
Photo: Mirage3/Depositphotos

Find Andersen-Fruedahl, who lives in Møborg near the towns of Lemvig and Holstebro in West Jutland, had appealed against a previous decision by a district court, in which he brought a civil law suit against the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (Miljøstyrelsen).

The property owner had asked for between 200,000 and 300,000 kroner (27,000-40,000 euros) as compensation for trees and lakes damaged by beavers.

But the Vestre Landsret higher court upheld the previous verdict in a decision reached on Tuesday, DR reports.

“I’m disappointed. We’d hoped we would win, but I knew it was unlikely, because it’s the little guy against the great powers,” Andersen-Fruedahl told DR.

Beavers munched their way through trees including Sitka spruce, firs and red beeches on Andersen-Fruedahl’s property, causing many trees to fall with ground floods occurring as a result, the landowner said.

Andersen-Fruedahl argued that it was up to the environmental agency to control the beaver colony living on his land. He said that he would speak to his lawyer about whether to take the case further.

“Perhaps we should get hold of some politicians and try to change the decision that was made long ago to allow beavers to roam freely. It’s not just me that has problems with beavers,” he said.

The Danish Nature Agency (Naturstyrelsen) in 1999 reintroduced the beaver to Denmark by releasing 18 animals in the Klosterheden Plantage nature reserve close to Andersen-Fruedahl’s land.

That small population has grown to 200 individuals today, DR writes. The animals, which gnaw through trees and build dams, remain protected under Denmark’s nature laws, meaning the state is not liable for damage they cause, according to a previous ruling by Holstebro District Court.

READ ALSO: Dane loses court case over gnawing beaver problem