MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • August 18, 2024
Caving the common name “muskrat” doesn’t do it any favors, since “rat” carries its own pejorative meanings, and “musk” refers to the smell coming from its musk gland. Then there is the often mis-association of muskrats with their larger (and quite distant) cousins, the North American beaver. Beavers, despite being one of the most fascinating and important ecosystem engineers, are often disliked for their ability to impact environments by cutting down trees and damming waterways. Muskrats are essentially the best of both animals: small enough (but bigger than a rat) to not do too much “damage,” and a native species that provides many benefits to an ecosystem. ~ Maine Audubon Staff Naturalist Doug Hitchcox