Page 8 -
P. 8

Author’s Note                                                                                              Bet you didn’t know that beavers . . .






               As unbelievable as it sounds, beavers really did fall from the sky over backwoods Idaho. In                                           •  Give off a goo that smells like vanilla—and you may have eaten it. Castoreum, a
               1948, Elmo Heter and his team from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game air-dropped                                                    chemical compound sometimes used in vanilla flavoring, comes from a beaver’s
               seventy-six live beavers into the Chamberlain Basin region, in what is now part of the Frank                                            castor sacs, located under its tail. The brown stuff looks like molasses and smells like

               Church–River of No Return Wilderness.                                                                                                   musky vanilla.
                   Geronimo was the very first to be transported, along with three young female beavers. He

               and the females landed safely, though Geronimo took his time leaving his opened box. Perhaps                                          •  Have orange front teeth. And it isn’t because they forgot to brush. Those super-
               he was waiting for another dive!                                                                                                        strong chompers that can gnaw through tree trunks are iron fortified. It’s the iron in

                   Seventy-five of the seventy-six skydiving beavers landed without problems, and were                                                 the tooth enamel that makes beavers’ front teeth so strong, self-sharpening, and
               surely delighted with their new people-free habitat. On one of the boxes, though, a rope                                                orange!

               lashing loosened some distance above the ground. The curious beaver inside managed to                                                 •  Have multitasking tails. A beaver’s flat, leathery tail serves many functions. In the
               climb out and onto the top of the box, jumping or falling before the box touched down.                                                  water, the animal uses it like a boat rudder to maneuver around, or slaps it on the
                   Observations made a year later revealed that the beaver relocation was a total success. As                                          surface to warn other beavers of danger, such as an approaching predator. On land,

               Elmo reported in a 1950 issue of The Journal of Wildlife Management, the beavers had “built                                             the beaver’s tail can work like a kickstand, helping the beaver sit upright, or as a
               dams, constructed houses, stored up food, and were well on their way to producing colonies.”                                            counterbalance so the beaver won’t tip over when carrying heavy tree limbs.

                   While Elmo’s beaver relocation by parachute was an inventive idea in 1948, it likely
               wouldn’t happen today. Scientists have since learned that beaver communities can be good for                                          •  Navigate in water with cool adaptations. Beavers have evolved built-in nose- and

               the environment, providing habitat and food sources for other wildlife and helping with water                                           earplugs that keep out water, plus see-through “third eyelids,” membranes that act as
               management. So these days, people find ways to get along with their neighborhood beavers.                                               swim goggles covering their eyes. And their lips close behind their big front teeth, so

               In Martinez, California, for example, a male and female beaver built an enormous dam across                                             they can carry food and building materials underwater without drowning.
               a local creek and chewed through willow trees and other city landscaping. When the city
               council wanted to exterminate the beavers because they feared the dammed creek would                                                  •  Were once ginormous! Beavers’ Ice Age ancestors, called Castoroides, grew to seven

               flood, Martinez residents organized to protect the animals.                                                                             feet long and nearly three hundred pounds. Now that’s one big beaver!
                   The problem was solved by running a pipe through the beavers’ dam to control water

               levels and flow. Thanks to the beavers, Alhambra Creek, once a fairly lifeless trickle, was                                             Sources:
               transformed into a series of dams and ponds that are now home to a wider diversity of wildlife,                                         Heter, Elmo W. “Transplanting Beavers by Airplane and Parachute.” The Journal of Wildlife Management. Vol. 14,
               including various fish, the North American river otter, and mink.                                                                       No. 2 (April 1950), pp. 143–147.

                   Though we may not transplant beavers anymore, it’s still fun to think that the descendants                                          Worth a Dam website, www.martinezbeavers.org.
               of daredevil Geronimo and his fellow skydiving rodents are likely alive, well, and happily                                              Wright, Samantha. “Parachuting Beavers into Idaho’s Wilderness? Yes, It Really Happened.” Boise State Public Radio
                                                                                                                                                       website, http://boisestatepublicradio.org/post/parachuting-beavers-idahos-wilderness-yes-it-really-happened.
               gnawing deep in the wilds of Idaho.                                                                                                     (January 14, 2015)
   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10