On Oct. 30, Oakland University’s very own Habitat also became a home for beavers as it hosted Beaver Fest. Students were invited to enjoy hot apple cider, beaver tail funnel cakes and other refreshments while participating in various activities.
Students could decorate tote bags to then take home, participate in a pretzel and frosting dam building competition and win giveaways to commemorate OU’s pair of beavers.
“We’re celebrating the beavers on campus, which have done a wonderful thing, they’ve brought back a wetland in the bio preserve,” Nicholas Skinner, the Director of Sustainability for Student Congress, said. “We just want to raise awareness about them so people know the good that beavers do all around, but also so these beavers on campus can be kept here.”
The Biological Preserve of OU discovered two beavers that have taken residence because one of the most used trails is now underwater. Waabi and Sooka, the names that the Native American Advisory Committee has given to the campus beavers, have begun to build a dam near the preserves.
“Ever since the beavers moved in, they moved into a spot on Galloway Creek just north of the biological preserve and flooded a footpath that we use for our classes, and for the past year, we’ve been basically exploring all sorts of different options for how to live with the beavers,” Tom Raffel, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, said.
As one of the three faculty-based “Beaver Team” members, Raffel also aided in raising money for the Beaver Remediation Fund, which funds the addition of stepping stones to the water-covered trail. Other projects include creating a large enough culvert protective fence so that the footbridge can be preserved.
The beavers have become infamous for plugging said culverts “in a matter of minutes,” as mentioned by the Beaver Fest event flyer. Having these culverts extended could allow for OU trails and bridges not to be soaked, and for the beavers’ dam not to be ruined.
Students were able to enjoy the event for the three hours it ran and were able to enjoy footage taken of said beavers and that of the surrounding wildlife caught on cameras set up by Dr. Sandra Troxell-Smith.
“I’m surprised we got this many people, I was afraid we wouldn’t get that many people, but we got a good turnout, everything turned out well,” Skinner said as students took pictures at the beaver-photo station and apple cider ran out at the refreshments table.
“I thought it was really fun; I mean, everyone seems to be interacting on campus. It’s a great way to bring everyone together and I just think it’s a cool thing to do in the Oakland Center,” Olivia Massarello, an OU student, said. “I did shout out to Professor Andrea Knutson. She made sure that every class we would look at the beavers, and it was just really fun, so I was super stoked about this event.”
To stay up to date on the latest beaver mischief, visit the OU Animal Behavior Instagram Profile.
