Exceptional footage of a coyote attacking a beaver

Absolutely incredible trail camera capture of a coyote attacking a beaver in Connecticut. You might be wondering: “You study wolves in Minnesota, why are you posting this video from Connecticut?”

The reason is because this footage illustrates why beavers are important prey for wolves in many forested areas but not coyotes…even though coyotes inhabit many areas with quite a few beavers.

Why is that?

The coyote tries for several minutes to kill this beaver but the beaver ultimately escapes. Unfortunately, the video was not captured on video but the beaver with his bloodied tail is on the trail only an hour after being attacked.

Ultimately, this beaver is almost as large as the coyote and the coyote struggles to really move the beaver at will because of the beaver’s size and strength.

The coyote bites the beaver’s tail repeatedly but virtually never lands a blow to the beaver’s muscular body. Coyotes, unlike wolves, simply do not have the strength and size to routinely kill beavers, especially large adult beavers.

Wolves, on the other hand, not only have the strength to yank beavers around but they also have the bite strength to grab the beavers body and deliver crushing blows.

Killing beavers is harder than it seems because beavers have no obvious neck or easy place for a predator to latch one. They are just one large furry football-shaped hunk of muscle, which complicate the logistics of killing them with one’s mouth, especially for smaller predators like coyotes.

Of course, coyotes and other small predators do occasionally kill beavers, especially smaller beavers, but it is not a common occurrence, and there is little evidence that beavers constitute a large portion of coyote diets.

We want to extend our sincere thanks to the Traprock Ridge Land Conservancy in Connecticut for reaching out to us and sharing this incredible footage they captured. And big thanks for letting us share the footage with everyone here. Capturing an encounter like this on video is one in a million!

Written by Voyageurs Wolf Project