You guys can't miss this video... We've got:

• Beaver activity 🦫
• Tortoise unboxing 🐢
• The mystery of the stolen camera 📷
• The pond parade: armadillos, otters, wild beavers, deers, ducks, maybe coyotes?, possums, etc...

I remained completely still like you do with a t Rex but as soon as I moved he bolted.

Hi everyone,

I’m sharing some very sad news received today from Dr. Holley Muraco regarding Windy and Willow:

"For those of you following us closely, there should have been a fun video today showing Windy and Willows soft release. Unfortunately what started off as an exciting evening suddenly took a tragic turn yesterday. As I was preparing to get Windy and Willow into the kennel while they were still in their enclosure, windy started demonstrating neurological symptoms. She fell over when she walked and then became unresponsive. I rushed her to the vet where they gave fluids and oxygen but she unfortunately passed away. We have sent her to LSU for a necropsy. We are heartbroken.
For now I will be focusing on helping Willow get through this loss. All the other beavers are good."

Our thoughts are with Dr. Muraco, the team, and Willow as they navigate this loss. Let’s hope the necropsy provides answers... :-(

hope this increases the research on how to save the beavers infected with the virus properly and remove the virus from the primary environment that beaver lived

Joshua Tabora, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ furbearer biologist, told WTOP, “This is not an animal that’s going to seek out conflict unless something is really wrong.”

Something was really wrong with the two beavers who bit people at Cunningham Falls State Park. Both tested positive for rabies. The beaver in the third attack at Seneca Creek State Park was not found, but presumed rabid.

The sudden "rabid beaver epidemic" in MD and NJ feels less like public safety and more like a convenient excuse to clear nuisance dams

​Is anyone else watching how state wildlife agencies are handling beavers lately and feeling like the narrative is doing some heavy lifting?

​Look at what’s played out across Maryland (Cunningham Falls) and New Jersey (Lake Henry). The moment a conflict occurs, local agencies roll out the ultimate PR trump card: Rabies. Once that word hits a local news headline, any public pushback against lethal removal, trapping, or destroying lodges completely evaporates. Its well known states hate beavers, but being a protected species they are usually limited in what they can do about it.

Beavers, like other rodents , are very rare to carry rabies. Before the NJ beavers incident, rabies HAS NEVER BEEN found in a beaver. Both attacks in MD and NJ the people were encroaching on the beavers dam where beavers are naturally protective. Not to mention the insanely fast reaction times to trap, kill, and test the beavers (all that in the NJ attack happened in less than a day :/?) This is setting a worrying precedent, that the minute they want to do waterway work, a beaver can suddenly have rabies and be disposed of without due process.

​TL;DR: Rabies is real(but very unlikely in rodents, not to mention aquatic rodents...), but it's also the most effective PR cover a state agency can use to wipe out "inconvenient" beaver populations without triggering public outrage over wetland destruction.

I live with the wetlands backed up right to my apartment. Walk a few yards over to the edge of the property and there's a nice walkway through the wetlands. Saw two beavers one evening. First time seeing one in the 6 years I've lived here.

At first I thought they were more nutria but then I saw their flat tails poke out of the water! Love me some beavers.