37 MILLION YEARS & COUNTING: A SHORT HISTORY OF BEAVERS ~ - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

37 MILLION YEARS & COUNTING: A SHORT HISTORY OF BEAVERS ~ FRANCES BACKHOUSE ~

Beavers of the Past Castoroides Paleocastor

Beavers of Today Castor fiber (Eurasian) Castor canadensis (North American)

Castor canadensis - Historic range (circa 1500)

First Peoples & Beavers

North America’s beaver population Circa 1900 Before European contact

How did we manage to kill off so many beavers in such a short time?

The rush for “brown gold”

Average annual harvest of f beaver pelts lts in in North Am America (b (by y decade) ) From: Furbearer Harvests in North America, 1600-1984 by Novak et al. (Ontario Trappers Association, 1987)

“As to the ultimate destruction of the beaver no possible question can exist.” – Horace T. Martin, author of Castorologia (1892)

Average annual harvest of f beaver pelts lts in in North Am America (by y decade) )

37 million years of beaver history: What does this mean to us today?

North America’s landscapes and waterways were ori riginally y engineered by y beavers.

Eli Eliminating beavers hurt rt ecosystems and species th throughout North Am America.

What we didn’t kn know, we couldn’t understand.

Human-beaver conflicts are mostly disp isputes about terr rritorial ownership and use.

Bea eavers ar are her here for or the the lon ong ha haul, l, so so we e migh ght as as wel ell l lea earn rn ho how to o get alo along with the them.

CO-EXISTENCE

frances@backhouse.ca www.backhouse.ca www.facebook.com/MightyBeaver