Beavers are emerging sooner in spring amid warmer weather

A beaver at Miquelon Lake Provincial Park near Edmonton. Once a pond is completely covered in ice, beavers are confined below the surface for the winter. (Glynis Hood), CC BY-NC-SA Beavers are emerging sooner in spring amid warmer weather Published: July 12, 2026 12.04pm EDT Share article Print article The most anticipated day of my year is “BDay” — the first day when beavers are spotted on the ice in spring after emerging from small openings in the water in front of their lodges after a long winter of confinement. With the rest of the pond still covered in ice, the beavers remain spatially confined but are free to roam within their winter lodge and below-ice habitat. First, one of the adults emerges — much like a sentinel — and then the rest of the family follows in kind, except for the newborn kits who remain inside the lodge for several more weeks. In time, the entire pond becomes free of ice and spring begins anew. Spring emergence is most often documented in hibernators — species that experience noticeable changes to their metabolisms, core temperature and behaviour in winter. As seasonally confined non-hibernating mammals, beavers remain active under the ice throughout the winter. Also, unlike true hibernators, maintaining a normal body temperature allows beavers to mate during their winter confinement and give birth to their kits before emerging in spring. However, as with true hibernators, the timing of spring emergence can be strongly influenced by the climate. In a recent study, a colleague and I investigated the timing of spring emergence of North American beavers. We incorporated 18 years of emergence data for a beaver colony at a pond in Miquelon Lake Provincial Park, Alberta. We investigated the influence of ice-on dates (days when the pond was completely covered in ice), ice-off dates (when the pond was completely clear of ice) and climatic data on the timing of spring emergence of beavers. Beavers respond to climate change A young beaver explores a beaver lodge near Ellensburg, Wash. (AP Photo/Manuel Valdes) Once a pond is completely covered in ice, beavers are confined below the surface for the winter. Only in times of extremely low water do they chew their way out of their lodges in search of food in midwinter. More often than not, they then become food for equally hungry predators. Along with trends in emergence dates, we modelled climate trends over the past 30 years in the study area. Combined with data on seasonal ice…