Breeding Beavers, when this dam's a rockin' don't come a knockin'

by ryan | August 28, 2007 at 09:20 am

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The beaver is not only a national symbol in Canada. It's also one of nature's most industrious little creatures...changing landscapes and environments in a jiffy. The Brits have had a long love for beavers and their pelts, so much so they hunted them to extinction in Britan. But two years ago British scientists imported six beavers to breed.

Six Eurasian beavers released into an enclosed reserve as part of a conservation project in Gloucestershire two years ago have begun to breed. The beavers were brought to the Lower Mill Estate in the Cotswold Water Park from Bavaria in 2005.

"They do such a great job for the environment, they manage the eco system by dead-wooding and creating new growth," said land owner Jeremy Paxton. Beavers had been absent from England for about 500 years. The animals were hunted almost to extinction for their thick fur. The estate owners are not allowed to release the beavers into the wild because they are not native species.

Over hunting of the beaver did have some positive results, namely the development of Canada and economic motivation for exploration of the 'new world'. But now that Canada is doing ok on its own...let's get the beavers back to Britain.

The quest for religious and political freedom is often cited as the reasons Europeans colonized North America, but natural resources were another major draw. These included whales, vast schools of cod, and towering lodgepole pines used for ship's masts. But the resource that lured explorers across the continent was ACTUALLY the beaver.
After the early European explorers realized that Canada was not the spice-rich Orient, the main mercantile attraction was the beaver, then a population numbering in the millions. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, the fashion of the day demanded fur top-hats, which needed beaver pelts. As these hats became more popular, the demand for the pelts grew. Explorers were dispatched deep into the North American wilderness to trap and trade for furs with local natives.

King Henry IV of France saw the fur trade as an opportunity to acquire much-needed revenue and to establish his North American empire. Both English and French fur traders were soon selling beaver pelts in Europe at 20 times their original purchase price.