Muskrat - Waterway Manager

Detail below..

“ Muskrats, in their home territories, go about their nightly routines of digging channels, inadvertently creating unrestricted drainage and aeration of the soil by pushing up mounds of vegetation in flooded areas. Unlike the beaver, they do not harvest tree branches, preferring instead aquatic vegetation that is piled on a root mass or otherwise raised portion of a tundra pond. They usually have a few other mounds of vegetation located in secluded places, used as feeding stations. They create these by digging out a shallow burrow in the stream bank, where they deposit their musky scent. ”

An excerpt from Bill Kitzmiller's Kachemak Wilderness Notes.