Something to chew on: Beavers regain toehold as popularity of the Milwaukee River grows

The American beaver is discovering that the lower Milwaukee River is once again becoming desirable real estate.

There are increasing signs of the beaver’s presence: Gnawed trees for miles up and down the shoreline; a ramshackle dam that sticks out of the ice in Lincoln Park; and the most tale-tell sign of all — a beaver lodge near W. Hampton Ave.

The inroads by the largest rodent in North America have been unmistakable, says Cheryl Nenn of Milwaukee Riverkeeper, who has worked for the advocacy organization for 15 years.

“They’re definitely becoming more prevalent,” Nenn said.

Beavers were a fixture in the lower Milwaukee in presettlement times. They are still common in the far upper reaches. But they are making a return to the river on the city's east side.

“The corridor has become a better place,” Nenn said. "There is improving tree diversity — that’s important — and the water is improving. It’s all of those factors.”

The resurgence coincides with the growing popularity of the area for hikers, bikers and nature enthusiasts. Naturalists say there are simply more people in the beaver’s environment today.

At the same time, there have been significant investments in land conservation, including efforts by the Urban Ecology Center and supporters of Milwaukee Rotary Centennial Arboretum, which runs between E. North Ave. and E. Locust Ave.

As evidence of beaver activity has grown, a few miles upstream, a 3-year-old female was returned to the wild in September near Brown Deer Road. It’s the first beaver re-introduction on the river.

A wildlife rehabilitation group had searched for a year for a suitable site after nursing the beaver back to health, as a baby, from another southern Wisconsin river.

Bob Boucher, founder of Milwaukee Riverkeeper, helped advise Fellow Mortals Wildlife Hospital in Lake Geneva on sites and recommended the suitability of an urban river that would not likely attract trappers.

With their penchant for dam building and tree cutting, beavers also have a long history of antagonizing humans.

But Boucher preaches the benefits: A beaver-altered ecosystem can attract reptiles and amphibians, serve as nesting habitat for waterfowl and benefit other wildlife.

“They are about as gentle of an animal as you could come across,” he said. “They are intelligent. They live a long time. It’s one of only a few animals that changes its environment by building dams.”

But Boucher thinks beavers in the lower Milwaukee are struggling to gain a toehold in an aquatic system that remains stressed. “They are not necessarily thriving and increasing,” he said. “They’re just getting by.”  

Yet there are beavers in Milwaukee and Ed Makowski believed the changes he was seeing along the river was a story worth telling.

Makowski, 37, a poet, artist and writer, produced, “Beavers Return to the Good Land” for a class at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which he posted online in December on UWM’s Media Milwaukee website.

With collaborator Chardanay Hunt, Makowski draws a contrast between the historic slights industrialization imposed on the river and a more recent history of progress — most notably, the removal of the North Ave. dam in 1997.

“The river can be a beautiful resource for wildlife, but for a long time it was viewed as this scarred industrial canal,” he said.

In the documentary, Marcus Crawford details how he rejuvenated five lots at his home in Glendale into a wild forest riverfront.

Then the beaver arrived.

Crawford is seen tromping along the shoreline.

“This was the first tree. This was like the first kiss,” Crawford says, smiling. “Right there,” pointing to a tree that had been stripped of its bark. “That was three years ago.”

He recounted how other trees on his property have been cut, chomped on and dragged into the river. But instead of getting angry, Crawford has methodically wrapped wire screens around the lower extremities of soft-wood species that beavers feed on.  

“I’ll take the beaver any day and any night,” he said. “But you always have to have a defensive strategy.”

Jennifer Callaghan of the Urban Ecology Center said the first sign of beaver co-habitation in the lower Milwaukee was 2013, although there have been reports of beaver activity, not always substantiated, for the past decade.

Callaghan has been monitoring mammal populations in Riverside Park, next to the center, since 2006.

In July 2014, she captured 54 images of a beaver chewing on a cottonwood over a 12-day surveillance period. It was the Urban Ecology Center’s first evidence after some eight years of camera surveillance, the organization said in a newsletter that year.  

The center found that it took the beaver two months to cut down a large cottonwood. It chewed on about 60 other trees in the area, as well.

Despite so many signs of beaver activity, actual sightings have been rare.

Makowski, however, struck gold. As he began working on the project, he learned about Fellow Mortals’ plans.

On Sept. 25, between classes, he drove to Brown Deer Road, hiked into the woods and filmed the release of the beaver that workers for the organization called “Chip.”

“We feel really good about where she is here,” said Karen McKenzie, a wildlife biologist with Fellow Mortals.

“And we have given her the best possible start we can and now it’s up to her.”

Boucher has made periodic visits back and supplemented the beaver's diet with apples and sweet potatoes, in recognition of her long reliance on humans.

The food is disappearing, so he believes Chip has survived, so far.