It's possible that it was a beaver who did this. But then again as people in the comment section under the video pointed out, the beaver would have fell the tree into the river.
Ethics 3 made what looks like a sensible post on the youtube video page on a pinned thread started by rebel media.
ethics3
1 hour ago
@Jim Dent I will assume you are an urbanite so let me explain.
Beaver do not build dams on such larger rivers.
They build on creeks that have low flow in the summer so as to preserve the integrity of the structure .
When building the water level is initially below 2 feet in depth and increases as the dam height increases ( water builds up behind it )
The creeks beavers build on are initially between 5 feet to 20 feet in width . As the dam progresses the dam can get to amazing lengths depending how large the beaver wants his reservoir to be .
The reservoir give him a secure area to build his lodge and to access new trees as the flood area increases .
The river behind Keenan is far far to large and deep to build a beaver dam ( and fast flowing )
As well the banks are too high , so no land flooding could occur thus no secure way to access more trees .
One last point. If you look closely at the cut , you will NOT see the marks of a beavers incisors , nore are there sufficient wood chippings to justify such a large cut.
A saw was used to first cut a wedge out ( which was discarded into the river ) and then an axe and whittling blade was used in a poor attempt to make it look like beavers did it and clearly a hand saw was used to cut the small branches off .
Please also note that the ( 2 ) large chunks of snow are out of place from the rest of the plowed snow and conveniently placed to obscure the wood cut . Play the video again . You will not see any other bug chunks of snow on the sides .
As I mentioned in another response. This is standard eco terrorist practice designed to slow / delay and back up work.
One last point. Beavers always place their cuts on the creek side in order to have the tree fall into the water thus giving him a safe area to harvest the branches.
The cut in the video is on the road side
All obvious stuff as we had a forest to play in during our youths ( with 3 creeks )
The tree in the video is not one of the beaves preferred types as well