Alaska’s beaver reports cluster around Denali National Park’s boreal ponds and the waterways of the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, with additional records reaching Kodiak Island’s National Wildlife Refuge and the wetlands of the Copper River delta. Wherever there’s a stream with woody plants nearby, beavers tend to show up, from Interior spruce forest to Southcentral river deltas.
A beaver doesn’t just live in a stream, it rebuilds one. By felling aspen, willow, and birch and packing the branches with mud, a family dams the flow until the water is deep enough to hide their lodge and float a winter food cache under the ice. That cached pile of branches matters even more here than farther south, since Alaska’s rivers stay frozen over for much of the year.
Records run year-round but peak from May through July, when two-year-old beavers disperse to found new colonies and fresh gnawed stumps and rebuilt dams become easier to spot. A quieter month in the records reflects less activity above the ice, not fewer beavers.
Full species profile
