Back in January, Boise State Public Radio broke news on an excellent bit of local nature lore: "More than 60 years ago, Idaho Fish and Game dropped beavers out of a plane and parachuted them into the state's backcountry."
It's more complicated than it sounds. As post-WWII expansion saw residents moving into less populated areas of the state, Idaho started having an increased issue with beavers interacting with city life. It fell on the Fish and Game Department to come up with a relocation solution. And while they identified a largely natural area perfect to re-home the creatures, the spot (the Chamberlain Basin, now known as the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area) was hard to access due to a lack of roads. Sadly, packing the beavers and transporting them using horses or mules was deemed impossible—a report filed at the time said the animals become "become spooky and quarrelsome" when loaded with the "struggling, odorous" live beavers.
Luckily, Elmo Heter of the Department had an idea. There was a parachute surplus after the war, so why not tap into that as an effective and affordable means of beaver relocation? "The estimated cost for dropping four beavers from a plane was around $30 in 1948, that's about $294 in today's dollars," Boise State Public Radio reports. Eventually the Fish and Game Department designed a special drop box to ensure safe travel for the animals, and 76 total beavers eventually took the trip (with only one casualty).
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