OkcPets Magazine January 2024

January / February 2024 • OKC Pets 29 Okoboji Veterinary Hospital 1020 NW 192nd St., Suite L | Edmond, OK 73012 405-513-5905 Puppy Classes, Adult Obedience, Canine Fitness, Trick Training, Show Handling and much more • Reduced class sizes for social distancing • Morning and evening classes • Come train and play in a climate-controlled setting • Large fenced outdoor area 405.288.0092 30217 Santa Fe Ave. • Norman, OK Beavers cannot survive without living on ponds, lakes, streams, or rivers. People can. Beavers need trees to build their lodges and dams. To attempt to protect specific trees from beavers, homeowners and land- owners can use caging, electric-shock fencing, metal flashing around the trunks, or a mixture of paint and sand applied directly to the trunks. Regarding flooding, which often occurs at culverts, flow de- vices can be installed. Several companies can be hired to do this work, and people can also build do-it-yourself versions of the devices. These have proved to be most cost-effective in the short term and long term. When a beaver family is eliminated, in all likelihood, another will move in. It’s a constant battle, which results in many dead beavers and frustration for people. Flow devices and tree protec- tion can help people live with beavers in many situations. With an increasing number of ever hotter days and longer droughts, we will only benefit from the environmental engineer- ing of North American beavers. In the next year, WildCare will work with others to develop a strategy and resources to help landowners manage some of the initial negative outcomes that beavers bring and live with all the benefits that they provide — improved water quality, consistent- ly maintained water table, mitigation of fires and catastrophic floods, carbon sequestration, and increased biodiversity in beaver-built or beaver-enhanced areas. WildCare Oklahoma has the only native-wildlife hospital in Oklahoma staffed with a full-time veterinarian, two registered veterinary technicians, and a veterinary assistant. For more information, contact info@wildcareoklahoma.org or visit the website at www.wildcareoklahoma.org. The ideal rehabilitation scenario is to have more than one beaver in care. Extremely social animals, beavers do better together. Photo by Laura Kintz, WildCare Oklahoma.