Via Mary G in the thread below (I am clearly going insane because I forgot where the hell I saw it first and it was only a half hour ago in the comments here),
Via the twitter machine, I have today learned one of the greatest things to happen in the United States. Apparently, after WWII, Idaho faced a set of problems. They had a nuisance beaver problem, and a surplus of WWII parachutes. Some galaxy brain came up with a solution:
In 1948, the state of Idaho solved two problems in one go: a beaver nuisance, and a surplus of parachutes left over from World War II.
The Time Idaho Dealt With Its Surplus Of Beavers By Parachuting Them Into Its Backcountry iflscience.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from iflscience.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Ripley s Believe It or Not is a museum and website full of all sorts of strange stories that seem too strange to be true, but they are. Idaho has quite a few strange stories and several of them have been featured in Ripley s Believe it or Not!
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My favorite story is the parachuting beavers. Idaho Fish and Game in 1948 captured beavers near McCall so they could be relocated safely to another area as it became more popular. So, they put beavers in crates, then the crates in airplane and put a parachute on the crate. Then, they dropped them from the airplanes and they landed in their new habitat Chamberlain Basin. So literally beavers have done more extreme sports than I have.
Idaho Stories Featured In Ripley s Believe It Or Not newsradio1310.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newsradio1310.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
It’s Raining Beavers in Idaho! 76 Beavers Were Dropped From Parachutes in 1948
Chamberlain Basin is the largest protected roadless forest in the continental U.S and is also home to a flourishing beaver population. These beavers aren t necessarily native to the are though In 1948, 76 beavers were relocated to Chamberlin Basin via an unorthodox transportation method - leftover World War II parachutes (check out the video below)!
As Payette Lake became more populated by people in the 1940s, there became less room and tolerance for the beavers as they were a huge interference to irrigation and agricultural endeavors. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game decided they had to step in and find an entirely new home for the beavers. While there is a plethora of wilderness options perfect for a beaver to thrive in here in Idaho, getting them to that perfect destination was the issue.