A week-old beaver kit is the newest arrival at the Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center in Roanoke. Center president Sabrina Garvin received a call from a pair of canoeists who found the little beaver this weekend in the Sandy River Reservoir in Prince Edward County.
“They were canoeing and they saw this little beaver swimming toward them in their canoe,” Garvin said. “They put their hand out, and the beaver grabbed on. They thought, well, it’s a wild animal; I need to p,t it back. It started throwing one of its little tantrums and refused.”
Being so young and nowhere near a den is a telltale sign that the beaver needed rescue.
“They usually have pneumonia, which proved to be correct,” Garvin added. “So that’s the story. Two wonderful people cut short their canoeing trip to bring us this baby beaver,” Garvin said.
After finishing a swim in its pool, 10 News got to see firsthand how tiny it is. Much like a newborn baby, it needs to be burped after meals and sleeps a lot. Garvin explained that beavers have a special bond with their family, so this one will require a lot of socialization.
“They’re always with a parent or a sibling. They’re doted on. And if they don’t get their way, they’ll have tantrums. But they need the socialization. Actually, when they start going out of the lodge, they’ll ride on their mother’s back with their siblings. So it’s important that once we get this one a little bit older, we introduce it to our other beaver. Otherwise, they get depressed," Garvin said.
The Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center also has a five-month-old beaver in it’s care.
The pair will slowly be introduced once the younger kit is old enough.
In the meantime, it will receive seven feedings a day and a lot of tender loving care.
In cases like this, it’s unclear how or why the kit became separated from it’s mother. Garvin said kits can start swimming 24 hours after birth, but are too buoyant to swim out of the lodge on their own.
“Their lodges can be torn apart by flooding. Other things can happen. It can be predators,“ Garvin said. Bears are known to destroy beaver lodges, but it’s unclear if that is what happened in this case.
“We can have humans that destroy the lodge. We hope they don’t do that during baby season. But again, it can be a predator. But typically, it’s after floods we see this. And they just get thrown downstream and are way too far. They don’t know how to get back," Garvin said.
The rehabilitation process for the kit will be around two years. The planned release date for the beaver is Spring 2027.
"As long as this baby gets through the pneumonia and recovers, it should be grand. And we may be asking the public for willow and birch branches. So we will let them know when we need foods like that," Garvin said.
The Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center is a nonprofit that receives no state or federal funding. The center solely relies on community donations and fundraising efforts. To help with the rehabilitation process, donations can be made online.