SAANICH, Nov. 18, 2020 – Barely past 8 am, John called around the corner from his office. “Ann, come look! What’s that?” He was looking out the window into the backyard. “At first I thought it was a dark colored squirrel that’s missing its tail, but now I’m not sure.”
Side-by-side, we stood transfixed, watching an animal neither of us had seen before. We’ve worked outside a lot, in wildlife biology and farming, and we’ve seen a lot of different animals, but neither of us had seen this one before. “What the devil is it?”
This is a rental house. We’re here temporarily while ours is remodeled. The current owners intend to rebuild, but I suspect the neglect of the gardens goes back many years. The laurels have grown almost as high as the house, and grapes climb rampantly throughout the laurel and up into the trees. A wild animal straying into this area of single-family houses might happily find safety here. And then it might venture forth onto the lawn, where we might see it.
It was moving around the backyard lawn, apparently in no hurry. It was an even dark brown, and had no tail. Moving away from us it went behind the trunk of a small apple tree and briefly jumped up to latch onto the trunk, perhaps a foot off the ground. Still thinking squirrel, I watched for it to appear up in the branches, but it dropped back to the ground and slowly worked its way around the lawn, which is dotted with small apple and fig trees. As it went it repeatedly nosed into the grass, but I didn’t see it obviously eat anything.
Now in profile, it seemed chunkier, like a rabbit, but it lacked a rabbit’s tall ears. Rabbits also have a noticeable, albeit short, tail. This animal had no tail. It paused, sitting up on its haunches with its front feet in front of its chest, reminding me of a ground squirrel. I noted yellowish hair on its belly and onto its legs. It made a little leap, with its front feet together, as a rabbit might do, as though it were jumping over a patch of wet grass.
Puzzled by the thing, I grasped for details. Strangely, I thought to myself “it’s twice the size of a large guinea pig.” I have no idea why guinea pigs were the unit of measure that popped into my head. Perhaps I was prompted by a lack of nervousness or vigilance that you’d expect from a small wild animal. It seemed calm, moving around on the ground, unafraid. We were inside, looking out, and didn’t dare go out for fear of scaring it, so we don’t know how it would have reacted to us. We didn’t want to take our eyes off it, so we didn’t run for a camera. You know how that goes; you go for a camera and then the animal is gone. Fascinated, we simply watched until it disappeared into the undergrowth. The whole episode lasted only a minute or so. What was it?
I went straight to email and began writing to people who might know. Suggestions came back, but they weren’t at all what we’d seen. Maybe a mink? No. Maybe a muskrat? No. Maybe a yellow-bellied marmot? They hitch-hike in cars and end up in surprising places? No. We’ve seen those animals. It wasn’t any of those. So what was it? A small dark brown mammal with no obvious tail and without tall ears like a rabbit. It latched onto a tree trunk, but didn’t climb.
What about a mountain beaver? Neither of us has ever seen a mountain beaver. They’re pretty rare and it would be extraordinary to find a mountain beaver in our yard, here in Saanich. We wrote back, asking the experts “could it be a mountain beaver?” The answers were resounding, emphatic, and unequivocal. Not a chance!
I’m cautious though. The situation reminded me of an observation I’d made years before, when I was a graduate student in Fairbanks, Alaska. In the full light of day, driving along the highway from Ester, Alaska, where we lived in a tiny house suitable only for broke students, to the university where we studied wildlife, I saw a red fox with no tail standing on the shoulder of the highway. Later that day, after attending the weekly Friday afternoon seminar, talking over beer and chips, I was telling two of our professors, expert wildlife biologists, my fox story. A fox with no tail? That sounds really unlikely. It must have been a lynx. Really, it must have been a lynx.
I was surprised by the strength of their conviction, that I could not possibly have seen what I thought I saw. But owing to their authority, two life-times of field experience, I conceded. It must have been a lynx. That would be my first wild lynx. I still doubted though. How could I mistake a lynx for a fox? Was I such a poor observer? A couple months later I was telling the local fur bearer biologist what I’d thought I’d seen and without surprise he said “oh yeah, there’s a fox with no tail in that area.” I’m not so easily dissuaded now.
And I’m not surprised to be surprised. In 1991 we had just arrived in Washington State after moving from Alaska. Friends were unloading the shipping container that was parked like a beached whale in the street in front of our newly rented house in the Ballard area of Seattle. With a brand new baby we desperately needed the help. I was standing outside the kitchen door, our two-month-old Alaska-born son in my arms, gawping, shocked and disbelieving, watching green parrots landing in the backyard tree. I was dumbfounded. Parrots? Green parrots? Tropical parrots? Here, in our backyard, in Seattle? Yes indeed, they said. There was a population of free-flying escaped parrots in Seattle. I often saw them after that, in small groups, flying high over the neighborhood. Crazy but true.
We didn’t know what we’d seen, but lacking any better idea, we seriously thought it might be a mountain beaver. Research began. An official provincial source, online, said “rare” on Vancouver Island. Mostly they are very rare throughout their range, except in some places they are plentiful enough, and do so much damage to gardens and trees, that there are mountain beaver removal services! That suggested that simply being an urban backyard didn’t preclude it being a mountain beaver. They also prefer damp places. This yard isn’t riparian, but Bowker Creek is just over a block away. If a mountain beaver travelled down Bowker Creek it might emerge from a culvert into the night air and waddle for a block and end up in an overgrown yard. Not impossible.
We each found images and videos on-line, and the photos showed a small brown animal with no tail and very short ears. That seemed right. The videos were even more convincing, showing mountain beavers, in daytime, bumbling around in shrubbery seemingly oblivious to the observers, acting much like what we’d seen. We agreed it could be a mountain beaver.
We kept watching. Now we had a camera ready. Mountain beavers normally are nocturnal, so it would be surprising to see it again in daytime, but we hoped. Weeks passed. If it were a mountain beaver it must have returned to the creek. This yard would not be a good home for it.
Then, several weeks later I pulled the car up in front of the house in the twilight of late afternoon. As I stepped from the car, standing one leg in and one leg out, I froze. A small tail-less animal bounded across the road and up the path between our house and the next. This animal was much smaller than what I remembered from the backyard, but there it was, dark brown, no tail, bounding away. This time it was afraid, vanishing into the bushes in seconds. Once again, no photo. It had to be the same animal, but it was so much smaller than I recalled. Why had I thought twice the size of a guinea pig? Maybe the surprise of it had made it seem bigger, like a memory of a fish that got away, or a bear that caused a fright.
Within days I saw it again, across the street. I managed a quick photo, but still nothing clear and definitive. Getting a photo during the shortest, darkest days of winter was a challenge.
After that, camera in hand first thing in the morning I went straight to the window and there it was on top of the
trellis! Trying to zoom and focus the camera, and also look at the animal, I was flustered. But as it climbed down the trellis head first I said “that’s a squirrel!” Now, with photos, we can plainly see it has little, pointy squirrel ears, not the little round ears of a mountain beaver. It’s a squirrel. A squirrel with no tail.
And that’s what John first thought, that it was a dark colored squirrel with no tail. But he hadn’t been sure. With a tail, he wouldn’t have looked twice. If the usual grey color, he would have called me to come see a squirrel with no tail. And we wouldn’t have learned about mountain beavers. And we wouldn’t look so silly for having chased a crazy idea all the way from impossible to possible and back again, back to that first impression.
We’ve seen it since then. It shows up for a few days then disappears, perhaps to sleep for days at a time. I’m still trying to get a good photo. It looks really odd, bounding back and forth across the street. With no tail to make it look balanced, its haunches look huge.
John was watching with me as I once again desperately tried to get a good photo, when our neighbors came out their front door, heading for their car. Seeing us, the husband matter-of-factly said “oh hey, there’s the squirrel with no tail.”
Featured image credit: Mountain Beaver, USNPS/Olympic National Park
First published: The Victoria Naturalist, Vol. 77.5 (2021), Originally posted: February 12, 2022; Updated: July 7, 2022