The Schoolhouse Pond Beaver Project was started with one simple mission, to identify and document the lives of the beavers that frequent Schoolhouse Pond. For those who do not know, Schoolhouse Pond is located in Upper Marlboro, MD in front of the county administration building. The pond is just south of the federal spring branch and west of the western branch of the Patuxent River (See figure 1).
If you have ever visited Schoolhouse pond you may have noticed many of the trees around the pound have a 3 foot high fence around their base to prevent beavers from damaging them. Or possibly you noticed signs of beavers such as a knocked down tree, or just some chew marks on a tree or two. This coupled with a few sparse beaver sightings when walking around the pond is what sparked my interest in documenting the beavers in this region.
The primary questions this website has set out to answer are:
- How many beavers live in or around Schoolhouse Pond?
- Where do they live?
- What is their territorial range?
- Do they have any natural predators in the narrow stretch of woods they live in?
- How do they interact with and impact other species in their territory?
- How have they adapted to the semi-urban environment in which they live?
- How much of an effect do we have on there ecosystem?
- For better?
- For worst?
- How do their lives compare to their more rural cousins?
To answer these questions my husband and I purchased two trail cameras, a tree stand, a ghillie suit, and some scent masking laundry detergent and began looking for signs of beavers in and around Schoolhouse Pond.
Schoolhouse Pond Beaver Project 