Abstract
Five millennia ago, the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) was extirpated from the Southern High Plains by droughts. Beaver were found to be largely absent from the Llano Estacado, despite exhaustive search efforts. Here we report the first definitive evidence of an extant C. canadensis population recolonizing the Llano Estacado. We further provide some spatiotemporal background information about beaver colonization along the North Fork of the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River.
Hace cinco milenios, el castor norteamericano (Castor canadensis) fue extirpado de las Altas Llanuras del Sur por las sequías. Se encontró que los castores estaban en gran parte ausentes del Llano Estacado, a pesar de los exhaustivos esfuerzos de búsqueda. Aquí reportamos la primera evidencia definitiva de una población existente de C. canadensis recolonizando el Llano Estacado. También proporcionamos información de antecedentes espacio-temporal sobre la colonización de castores a lo largo del North Fork del Double Mountain Fork del río Brazos.
Recommended Citation
Langlois, Garret D.; Cox, Robert D.; Gipson, Philip S.; and Stevens, Richard D.
(2022)
"The North American beaver (Castor canadensis) is recolonizing the Llano Estacado,"
Western North American Naturalist: Vol. 82:
No.
1, Article 20.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/wnan/vol82/iss1/20
On 8 July 2018, our trail camera captured a pair of beavers swimming at the mouth of a rheocrene spring-fed brook, which empties into Canyon Lake 6, at Mae Simmons Park, Lubbock, Texas (mp4 video, 11 s).
82.1.20 Supplementary Material 2.pdf (2165 kB)
Downstream from Canyon Lake 6, a beaver was photographed below the Buffalo Springs Lake dam on 7 May 2011. Observation was made by Sean Kyle and Dr. Kerry Griffis-Kyle.