WHEN BEAVERS FLEW

Nuisance beavers find a new home.

In 1948, in fast-growing McCall, Idaho, beavers were looked at as pests. Game warden Elmo Heter tried to remove them, but it was hard to keep semi-aquatic animals happy on a long horseback journey. He came up with an innovative solution: flying them into the mountains and dropping them by parachute into Idaho’s backcountry. (In the aftermath of World War II, surplus parachutes were readily available.) Elmo designed a box that would open when it landed and experimented with a test beaver he named Geronimo. (Readers probably won’t know that this was what World War II airmen shouted as they parachuted out of planes.) Once he was certain the boxes would work, he captured 75 more beavers and had them all flown and dropped into a mountain wilderness where beavers had been wiped out years earlier. A later survey revealed that the beavers had done just what Elmo had intended: They dammed streams and made a wetland. Tracy’s storytelling is succinct, straightforward, and appropriate for her young audience. She emphasizes the advantages of Elmo’s excellent idea, both for the beavers and for the wilderness; backmatter addresses later controversies about wildlife relocation and newer methods. Uribe’s muted digital artwork portrays the details of Elmo's planning, the beauty of the landscape, and some very appealing beavers. These spreads would show well at storytime.

A celebration of an early environmental success.