Nature
PUBLISHED
A historian from Idaho has stumbled across footage of a very unorthodox wildlife experiment from the 1950s.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.In the 1950s, beavers were overpopulating areas of Idaho. Stumped for ideas, the Idaho Fish and Game Department captured a colony of beavers, packed them into wooden crates, attached parachutes and dropped them from a plane into Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. Luckily, all the beavers appear to have survived and appear remarkably unfazed. The method is certainly thinking outside the box, although it's no surprise this conservation technique hasn't taken off.
The footage was thought to be lost for years until fish and game historian Sharon Clark came across the mislabeled tape. The Idaho Historical Society digitized the footage and has put the full 14-minute clip on YouTube.
