Beavers will damage trees as far as 100- 300 feet from the water. The following actions may help protect your trees from beavers:

• Spray the lower trunk of the trees up to a height of approximately 3-5 feet with taste repellents available at hardware stores or online. These may provide temporary protection.
• In areas where people have a relatively small number of trees in need of protection and where fencing or caging may not be desirable due to aesthetics or remoteness, the use of abrasive tree paint has proven effective at preventing beaver damage (recipe borrowed from Beaver Solutions, LLC at beaversolutions.com). Abrasive tree paint is mixed and applied as follows:

  Ingredients

  • Paint: Exterior Latex (choose a color to match the bark)
  • Mason Sand: 30 mil-70 mil

  Formula:

  • Mix 5 oz sand per quart of paint, or
  • Mix 20 oz sand per gallon of paint, or
  • Mix 140 gm sand per liter of paint

  Procedure: Make in small batches at a time on the day you are going to apply it. Using too much sand will cause the mixture to roll off the tree. Apply paint to bottom three to four feet of tree trunk (2 feet above snow). You do not need to reapply for several years. Consider leaving some trees unpainted for beaver food.

• This formula may not work for saplings. A longer term solution is to encircle your trees with sturdy wire fencing.
• Be sure to use fencing at least 4 feet tall, made of heavy gauge steel wire and openings no larger than 2 by 4 inches.
• Wrap fencing around the tree, and secure the two ends creating a free-standing cylinder of mesh.
• Leave 6-12 inches of space between the tree and the wire.
• Make sure the fence is flush with the ground at the bottom.