Rescue beaver builds dam with stuffed toys
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00:00Keeping a beaver inside of a house is not something I recommend to anyone.
00:03I need to spend time every day grooming her and scratching her back.
00:07I'm Beaver Mom.
00:08Hi.
00:09I'm Holly and this is Tulip's story for juveniles.
00:11Tulip was found alone as a baby beaver.
00:14Actually wandered up to some construction workers.
00:18Unfortunately in Mississippi, beavers are classified as a nuisance species.
00:22I love you.
00:29You're going to be okay.
00:31I volunteer with LeClaire Wildlife Rescue.
00:34Tulip was brought into rehab.
00:35She was so sick.
00:36It was sad.
00:37I just desperately wanted to help this little creature.
00:41She lived inside with our family 24-7 as a scientist looking at behavior.
00:46It's interesting.
00:47Their whole world is changing their environment to fit their needs.
00:51And so when they're inside the house, sometimes that just means that they go around and grab
00:55whatever they can find and put it in a pile or make a dam inside the house.
00:59It also means they want to chew anything that is available to them.
01:04They have teeth literally that are made of metal for the most part because they're orange
01:08due to the iron in their teeth and they chisel them all the time.
01:13Everything a beaver does is to ensure that they have what they need for survival.
01:17There's literally people in Mississippi that do nothing but dynamite beaver dams
01:21because trying to hand pull it is not going to happen.
01:23Myself, my husband, and my son.
01:25Luckily, it's a family affair, so we all take turns making sure that we can take care of her.
01:30She loves fruits so much that I limit the amount that she gets.
01:34But every now and then, if I give her a treat, she'll throw a tantrum if the banana runs out.
01:41What I also learned about Tulip was that she could not swim.
01:44It's normal for young beavers to not be able to swim well,
01:47but usually they at least have the ability to try.
01:50But when I put her in water, she could absolutely not dive.
01:53She just floated at the surface.
01:55I literally got in the water and swam with her.
01:57Finally, we got her where she was diving and she was swimming and everything was looking well.
02:04And then Tulip comes down with a horrible skin infection.
02:07I'm actually writing up a case study for a journal now because it was just one of these.
02:12I just didn't even know this type of skin infection even existed in beavers.
02:15I needed a way to protect the wound on her back.
02:19And what ended up working was a little onesie.
02:22A little infant creamy onesie.
02:24As soon as I would show it to her, she would literally climb into it because she liked it.
02:28She wore the shirts long enough until we were able to get healing
02:31and she no longer needed the topical medicine.
02:33Love you.
02:34The way we're approaching it with the beavers is we are their family.
02:38The family that they lost for whatever reason.
02:42We're doing the best we can to provide that security and safety and that reliability
02:47while also encouraging them to do natural beaver behaviors.
02:51We moved her into her own enclosure in the backyard.
02:54With beavers, we're very fortunate that we can still release these animals
02:58while also providing them with all that social skills.
03:00So we're very bonded but it's not going to prevent Tulip from being released.
03:04They're not going to walk up to any human because those humans do not smell like us
03:08or sound like us.
03:10She's a year and a half.
03:11The earliest you're supposed to release a beaver is two years old.
03:15Beavers live 25 years so they're slow to mature.
03:18They need time to grow up and so we might end up with Tulip for up to three years.
03:23When a beaver matures at the age of three to four and the hormones are there
03:28and their instincts to want to do what beavers should be doing in the wild kicks in,
03:32they're going to leave and they're going to be just fine.