FurMammalsWildlife

Furry Wildlife and its little-known facts

An adult beaver with a big willow branch

I’ve visited the canoe museum once in Peterborough, Ontario. The lady who worked there mentioned that rather the canoe or the beaver should be the Canadian flag’s emblem, not the maple leaf.

Busy is the beaver

Beavers are found in most provinces/territories and they’re used to be 8 feet long and weighed about 200 pounds; check out the Beringia Museum in Whitehorse. Did you know that a square inch of beaver fur holds 77,000-148,000 hairs? Their toes of each hind foot have split nails which makes it easy for grooming. Amazing is how far into the bush, away from water, they walk for their food-up to 30 metres;  guess their teeth can not be discounted as very useful weapons also, not just for felling trees but to defend themselves. Beavers’ teeth have an iron-laced enamel which shows up as orange; therefore they can cut through trees up to a metre in diametre. I’ll not get much (about $30.–) at auction (you’ll send the hide in “green”, which means it’s not tanned but fleshed and dry) so I’d opt to send it to a tannery, then either sell it tanned or work with it myself. Then I’ll have the beaver skull. The tail skin could be made into a wallet! Or eaten dried and smoked, too, once the hair is singed off. We’ve eaten back strap (beaver has protein and its liver has iron) and dried the highly priced castor glands. Do you know what the industries use beaver castoreum for? It is often added to expensive products like ice cream (especially those with raspberry, strawberry, or vanilla flavourings) beverages (whiskey), or perfumes (Givenchy, Chanel, Lancome, Dior and so on).

adult beaver swimming in river
Adult beaver swimming in river

Is a muskrat a rat or a mouse?

We have a muskrat that lives in an abandoned beaver lodge in the river’s side channel (there is not enough standing water in this channel anymore, therefore the beavers have abandoned it, because they probably didn’t deem it safe enough from predators). Muskrats are plenty in Northern Yukon – they love marshes and the water plants that grow along channels’ bottoms. They burrow into river banks and use their long, naked tail as a rudder. The tail is scaly, black and flattened from side to side. The muskrat is the largest mouse – really a field mouse that has traded meadows for marshes.

Otters are the funniest little guys

Each freeze-up, like clockwork, 2 or three otters come to the lake. They poke holes into the thin ice, walk along the edge of the lake, dive, play. I watched one of them eating a fish – two ravens were eager to steal it from him. Not impressed by the ravens’ advances, the otter just walked under a tree which hung out onto the lake, and enjoyed his meal. This scene reminded my of Gollum, with his “precious” from the Lord of the Rings movies. Otters are probably the most playful Yukon wild animals. Another time we watched an otter go sledding! It would walk up the hill, then slide down to the frozen lake. It did that for about 15 minutes. These views, including the changing light of the seasons and the fire in the wood stove, are our TV series out here.

To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.

Helen Keller

A cat like a lynx

The lynx is in the cat family and has very sharp teeth and claws to hold and kill its main food (the snowshoe hare) with one bite. It waits patiently for the hare to come by, then pounces on it. Or, with its snowshoe-like paws, zig-zags through the bush until it scares a hare out of its hiding place. Every 10 years or so the snowshoe hare population crashes – it could be because of disease, the production of toxins by their favourite shrubs or just by food supply. Then the lynx will have to go after squirrels, mice, grouse, ptarmigan, whatever it can find. Or/and it will travel away from its territory. The young lynx will starve as the female will give birth regardless of food supply. But when there is plenty of food, they’ll cache the surplus under mounds of grass marked with droppings.

We always take with us garbage bags, in case we trap a lynx or fox; they carry fleas. Back at home we spray Raid into the bag, tie it up and leave it for a few hours.

A Yukon wolf by another name

The Grey Wolf can have different colours, from near-white to black. A pack has a territory of 1,000 square kilometres – males travel up to 500 kilometres in search of a breeding female. A pair of wolves kill proportionally more moose/caribou than a pack – the 2 eat til they’re full, then it’s other scavengers’ turn: ravens, eagles, wolverine, marten and even chickadees will happily eat meat. A pack has a highly developed social hierarchy, with a female as the alpha, who leads the group hunting effort. If a wolf gets old and won’t be able to help with the hunt anymore, it has to go. Winter is an easy season for wolves to go on hunts, as moose won’t be able to just jump into the water and cross the river or lake.

Gulo gulo – what a fitting name

Wolverines, or Gulo Gulo, have large neck muscles and a very strong jaw to crush bone and are therefore superior to a grizzly, who will have to give up his kill when the wolverine shows up. Adult males have a home range of 400-700 square kilometres. Their fur is sought after as hood trim due to the fact that it is frost resistant.

Who eats whom?

Some furbearing animals are edible: lynx has very tasty meat (like turkey); we’ve also eaten muskrat, beaver, squirrel and hare.

Now what about lures? All wildlife goes crazy for beaver, but there are still specialized lures to attract just the animal you want. Keep your nose away from “Marten Magic” as the main ingredient in this lure is skunk! Marten eat berries and they’d love some raspberry jam. Lynx will respond to catnip, valerian or a perfume you don’t wear anymore (which would be called a curiosity scent). Lynx also get attracted to a feather dangling or some flagging tape hanging. Some trappers make their own lure (one trapper told me he’s using shaving cream) – a good thing to use is vaseline to make a paste with all your other ingredients – vaseline will keep the smell, even during a cold spell.

Everything you Need to Know

My Yukon Government’s favourite website is this one: https://yukon.ca/outdoor-recreation-and-wildlife/yukon-wildlife. You can click on the animal you want to know about and the best thing is you can listen to its call/growl/song.

This blog post first appeared as a column in Whatsupyukon.com.

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