30 IDAHO FALLS MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2018
A truck heads northbound toward
Island Park for a two-hour drive with a pair
of dog crates bumping around in the back.
Dogs aren't in the cages. Beavers are. It's
moving day and two beavers have a new
home to build in Idaho's backcountry.
"Beavers are really nature's engineers
and they do a really good job at what they
do," says James Brower, Idaho Department
of Fish and Game volunteer services coor-
dinator. "We love beaver and we love what
beaver do."
But until recently, the same department
now moving beaver, was issuing kill per-
mits to eliminate nuisance dam builders.
Beavers hear water running and they run to
stop it. They also chew, fl ooding roads with
trees toppled by their teeth. Roads close
when under water and those trees might be
your windbreak.
"Usually we would solve the problem
by issuing a kill permit to the land owner.
Instead, we're now trying to work with
landowners," Brower says. "It's more pref-
erable for us to move that beaver live and
have it do its job somewhere else where it's
not causing a problem."
Through the caged front of the crate, the
jostled animals are alert with eyes wide.
They're two of 19 moved in one summer.
Traveling by truck is foreign for all of them,
but mild compared to the transplant tactics
of the 1950s when Idaho's wildlife
biologists dropped beaver in
the backcountry via plane
and parachute.
"It's crazy, right? It's
not something people
do on a normal basis,"
Brower says. "I would
have loved to have been
a part of that."
Old footage of the oper-
ation is worth seeing and
hearing. Narrator with classic,
stern voice delivers scripted lines.
Grainy fi lm clips spliced together show bea-
ver drop. Box cracks open on impact. Ball
of fur lumbers out.
"Pretty fascinating time for sure," Brower
UBERFLIP
Eager
Beaver
BY KRIS MILLGATE
Making water with wildlife
