Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
The beaver's wonderful fur coat, so necessary for its survival, was once the cause of its near demise.
When explorers and settlers came to North America, they found beavers in enormous quantities. As
they sent beaver pelts, often obtained by trading with Native Americans, back to Europe, beaver hats
and coats grew steadily in popularity. Soon beaver garments became all the rage in Europe, and the
North American fur trade grew to enormous proportions. Indeed, it's been said, without too much ex-
aggeration, that the trade in beaver furs built North America.
Literature from the late sixteenth century until well into the nineteenth century reflects the immense
and continuing popularity of beaver hats. Oliver Wendell Holmes, for example, describing the well-
dressed man, adjured his readers to “Have a good hat; the secret of your looks / Lives with a beaver in
Canadian brooks.”
An idea of the immense demand for beaver fur can be gleaned from the fact that the Hudson's Bay
Company alone sold over three
million
beaver pelts during a twenty-five-year period in the second half
of the nineteenth century. As beavers were trapped relentlessly in the absence of any conservation laws,
forests were simultaneously felled to make room for farmland. The combination of unregulated trap-
ping and vanishing habitat proved deadly. By 1900, beavers had become scarce virtually everywhere
and were extirpated throughout much of their range. Then the pendulum slowly began to swing.
With the advent of modern wildlife management techniques, laws to protect beavers were passed
and strictly enforced. Beavers were also live-trapped in areas where they were still plentiful, and re-
stocked in regions where they had been eliminated. For example, in 1921, six beavers were trapped in
New York State and released in southern Vermont; eleven years later, beavers were reintroduced from
Maine into northeastern Vermont.
No species, however rigorously protected, can survive without adequate habitat, and here the ways
of humans, once so inimical to the beaver's survival, began to favor it. Concurrent with protective laws
and the reintroduction of beavers, there was a slow but steady abandonment of agricultural land. This
land soon reverted to the forest habitat ideal for beavers. Slowly at first, and then with increasing rapid-
ity, the beavers returned to their old haunts.
The restoration of the beaver has had many beneficial effects. Countless wetlands, once largely dried
up, now dot the landscape, helping to hold back high water and recharging underground aquifers. Even
more important, perhaps, is the vast amount of habitat that beavers create for other species of wildlife.
Indeed, in terms of benefits conferred on other wildlife species, beavers have to be awarded the palm
as our single most important wild mammal.
Biologists credit beavers for their important role in the remarkable resurgence of moose populations
in areas such as northern New England. Moose thrive on—indeed, require—the summer nourishment
provided by aquatic vegetation in shallow ponds, and many beaver ponds are ideal for the growth of
those plants. Further, moose need water where they can stay cool in the heat of summer and escape, at
least temporarily, the swarms of biting insects so common throughout their range.
Moose are by no means the only beneficiaries of the beaver's work. Muskrats, otters, and other mam-
mals utilize beaver flowages. Many waterfowl species nest on the ground along the shores of beaver
