Last night we were sitting outside eating our dinner when I noticed two little boys on the lake shore throwing rocks into the water. I then saw some animal swimming around right where the rocks were landing. I grabbed the binoculars to take a closer look. At first glance I thought it must be their dog and they were throwing things in for the dog to fetch because this animal seemed to be “playing” with the boys. I kept watching and the animal would at times run up on the shore and it was NO dog! I grabbed my camera and walked across several other campsites to get a closer look. The boys told me it was a beaver but this thing was huge! It was larger than most dogs. The odd thing is it continued to play with the boys and each time they threw a rock in the lake it would go chasing after it. Occasionally the boys would hit the thing in the head and it would be dazed momentarily but would continue playing. Within minutes there was a large group of people standing around watching it. Everyone agreed it was a beaver but I had no idea they were this large. He looked more like a cross between a rat, a bear and a hippo and was about the size of a pig. He hung around playing with those boys for about half an hour before they left. He then swam around for a while longer in that area then swam away. It was certainly an exciting evening. I had no idea beavers lived in the lake! You never know what sea monsters lie deep within the waters!
you really can't tell just how large this beaver is in these photos, but he was BIG!
this shot was taken from our campsite and is not very clear but you can see his broad flat tail as he walks back to the water. I wish I had the boys in the photo too so you could tell how large the beaver really was.
