The Time Gov’t Officials Paid 30 Bucks to Throw Beavers with Parachutes Out an Airplane

Look! Up in the sky!

It’s a bird! … It’s a plane! It’s … a beaver?

Shortly after World War II, a crew from Idaho Fish and Game came up with a plan to relocate several dozen beavers from populated areas by parachuting them into wilderness areas.

Boise State Public Radio (and others) dubbed it “the great beaver drop of 1948.”

In the operation, 76 beavers were shoved out of airplanes in special boxes designed to open on impact.

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Miraculously, all of them survived except one, according to the report.

According to Scientific American — which termed the operation “one of the nuttiest solutions to wildlife relocation ever dreamed up” — the wildlife workers saw it as a win-win solution to the problem that arose as the population grew around towns like McCall and Payette Lake.

As humans are wont to do, the newcomers built farms, installed irrigation systems and planted orchards.

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The beavers proceeded to do what beavers everywhere have been doing for thousands of years: chomping down trees and blocking up waterways.

The humans didn’t like having their fruit trees and man-made watering systems destroyed.

So the Fish and Game Department began relocating beavers to more remote areas, which was considered beneficial to the new area.

“[P]ast experience had shown that transplanted beavers were great at setting up new colonies, multiplying, and providing valuable environmental services such as storing water, reducing the risk of flash floods and erosion, and improving the habitats of other mammals, fish, waterfowl, and plants in the area,” Scientific American reported.

According to Boise Public Radio, Idaho Fish and Game staff member Elmo Heter cooked up the scheme to move the beavers to the Chamberlain Basin, in what is now known as the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area.

But making the long trip to transport the beavers with pack animals posed too many challenges: For one thing, the beavers would overheat and die if kept out of water…

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