d the local ecology benefits from the
Important: Do not drive through the field to get closer to the Geocache. This could result in a fine.
This Geocache is part of an annual Geocache Challenge put on by the Heritage Program at Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area as part of our outreach to the public, to get people to explore their forest and their history, and to share the unique heritage of the families from Between the Rivers.
This Geocache is part of the “2022 Land Between the Lakes Heritage Geocache Challenge: Conservation Heritage Between the Rivers”. There are 6 geocaches placed across Land Between the Lakes related to the history of wildlife conservation between the rivers. If you locate each geocache, and collect a numbered aluminum tree tag from each cache, you can turn them in at the Golden Pond Visitor Center for one of 150 Challenge Coins created for this event.
The Geocache is a 6” x 6” orange watertight plastic box marked “Heritage Geocache” on the top. The geocache is placed along the “Brandon Blue Trail” near an area associated with beaver habitat and a bridge.
Thank you to Phillip Toon for providing the new Geocache Boxes!
Beaver and Otter Conservation Geocache
The second largest living rodent, the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) builds lodges and damns using tree branches, rocks, vegetation, and mud. As a herbivore, they consume herbaceous plant material such as leaves, roots, herbs, ferns, grasses, sedges, water lilies, water shields, rushes and cattails.
Historically, beavers have been hunted for their fur, meat and castoreum. Castoreum has been used in medicine, perfume and food flavoring, while beaver pelts have been a major driver of the fur trade.
Beavers need trees and shrubs as building material for dams, which impound flowing water to create a pond for them to live in, and lodges, which provide shelter and protection. It's actually the sound of running water appears to stimulate dam-building, and the sound of a leak in a dam triggers them to repair it!
The beaver was reintroduced to LBL area in the 1930s with an initial group of 30 imported from Wisconsin.
Like the beaver, the river otter was reintroduced to LBL as a conservation effort. The original population was from 6 or 11 otters from the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville. These were traded for several turkeys from LBL. This handful of river otters were initially released at the northern shore of Hematite Lake in 1982-1983 after being nearly wiped out by over-hunting/trapping.
Today, the river otter population is healthy enough to support hunting and trapping and the local ecology benefits from their being here.
