Castor Canadensis, the North American Beaver, is one of the most amazing animals on our blue planet.  For 40,000 years across the Northern Hemisphere they have created astonishing habitats that benefit all of us who are fortunate to live in beaver country. 

Having grown up in Oregon’s back country, from a young age I’ve been interested in the natural world. One of my mentors, Will H. Brown, was regional director of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He restored beaver to Steens Mountain Wilderness on Oregon’s High Desert just before the outbreak of WWII, and he had a deep and abiding love and respect for beaver. I have also become a “beaver believer.”

Most Americans would be shocked to learn Hudson’s Bay Company deliberately created a “beaver desert,” trapping them for their pelts across the Pacific Northwest in an effort to discourage settlers from following trappers into the region. Their plan was a success in eliminating beaver, but not in discouraging pioneers. The beaver populations once so plentiful across the Pacific Northwest, have never recovered over these intervening years, and until recently haven’t received our essential support. Beaver are a keystone species, essential to enhancing our watersheds in this time of climate change. They should be celebrated and honored and of course protected until they have repopulated their historical neighborhoods. Bring back beaver, NOW!

— Stephen Anderson

Photo by Neal Maine. See more of his work at Fairweather House & Gallery.