by Craig Smith

Rusty Cohen was out for a neighborhood walk along Soscol, when near the Hawthorne Inn he noticed a lot of small, chewed trees in the creek. He explored a little bit and found a beaver dam there. After that, he stopped by every day while walking. It changed everything for him.

Cohen and his family moved to Napa from Albany in 2011. His daughter was attending a special needs school here, he was retiring, and it seemed like a good move. During one of his daily walks, he discovered the beaver dam, not fifteen minutes from his house.

He wasn’t much of a photographer until he discovered beavers, which are the largest rodent in North America and one of the few species which significantly modify their environment. Cohen bought a point-and-shoot camera, which kept him busy for a while, but met a photographer who suggested he invest in a good DSL camera. He has developed a lot of skill as a photographer, and his shots of river wildlife is stunning.

For Cohen, the appeal of beavers is in part that they are a keystone species. Beaver ponds attract a wide variety of other furbearing animals including mink, muskrats, otters and raccoons. The unique dam- and pond-building attributes of beavers create favorable habitat for a variety of wildlife species, including fish, ducks, shorebirds, amphibians and reptiles.

Three facts about beavers:

If they weren’t continually wearing their teeth down, the constant growth would prevent them from feeding, and could eventually kill them.
Not all beavers build dams. They're fine as long as they have an area to build their lodge, like a riverbank; food; access to mates; and water that allows them to escape from predators—the reason they build dams in the first place.
Beavers have vanilla scented butts –at least to some people’s noses. It’s a result of their diet of leaves and bark.