Cinematographer Jeff Hogan has filmed many animals all over the world, but, to him, nothing compares to filming busy and beautiful beavers in his hometown of Jackson, Wyoming. He’s been filming beavers for over 30 years and has perfected capturing these creatures at work. See how he does it and how important beavers are to the local ecosystem and surrounding wildlife in this episode.
TRANSCRIPT
(water gurgling and birds chirping) - My name is Jeff Hogan, and I've been filming wildlife around the world for over 30 years now.
But my favorite place and my favorite creature is right here in my own backyard.
It's the beaver.
So here we are.
This is your classic beaver colony.
It consists of several beautiful large dams, a few different lodges, and they've just flooded this entire area and made this incredible wetlands ecosystem.
I'm gonna get on, have a closer look.
Here's classic beaver workings.
These are smaller cottonwood trees, that they have just chewed down, and they utilize them for food, as well as building materials.
Let's go check out the dams.
(water stream gurgling) This is an incredible dam.
The beavers are constantly maintaining this dam, utilizing new materials, old materials, as well as stones.
And what I wanna do is I wanna get a shot under water of them actually building and maintaining this dam.
(water streaming loudly) (water gurgling) The beavers possess so many different engineering skills, one of which is excavation.
And what they did is they excavated a canal back over to their favorite food supply, willows and aspens.
And they'll just float it, and swim from the safety of the water.
That's where they're at home.
That's where they can escape predators.
Oh, look at this, beaver poop.
Amazing.
(Jeff gasping) (water splashing) So I'm waiting for the beavers to show up.
They should be leaving their lodge soon, and with some luck, we'll get some beaver building the dam activity here.
Right now, the water's running fairly high, because of the spring runoff, but they'll still cruise back and forth and inspect their dam.
So any minute now, we should see a beaver.
(water gurgling) I've been filming beavers for probably over 30 years now.
To capture the little intimate details of their life is just so much fun.
They do so many things.
They build lodges, they build dams.
They chew on trees and knock 'em down and then cut 'em into little pieces and use them for building materials and for food.
So there's so much going on here at the Beaver pond.
Other species utilize the efforts of the beaver as well.
They create these incredible ecosystems.
These beavers are just wonderful creatures.
(birds chirping and water gurgling) (wind whistling)
