Fascinating Footage Shows Busy Beaver Effortlessly Chewing Through a Fallen Tree

From building dams to digging canals, beavers are known for being incredibly industrious. However, since they’re primarily nocturnal and do most of their work at night, it’s rare to catch a glimpse of them when they’re most active. However, hobbyist wildlife videographer Mike Digout (of Mike’s Videos of Beavers) has been documenting the beaver families in the rivers of his hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in Canada. He recently captured a particularly busy beaver skillfully chewing through a tree limb.

Beavers are vegetarians, and find nourishment in deciduous trees, grasses, pond lilies, and other plant life. Tree branches are particularly necessary for the species. As well as being a source of food and a material to build their homes and dams from, tree branches also help beavers wear down their strong teeth, which never stop growing.

Digout’s video shows the hungry beaver happily chomping down on the felled timber using its incredibly strong teeth. “I was in the right place at the right time to film this wild beaver chewing a chunk off of a fallen tree trunk,” Digout says. “I tried to get in very close to provide a real up-close look at how they do this.” In another video, Mike shows how another beaver chomped through a two-inch branch in under one minute!

Check out Digout’s videos below, plus more of his fascinating footage that captures beaver life.