The Skydiving Beavers: A True Tale

by Susan Wood, Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen (Illustrator)

Overview

Just after World War II, the people of McCall, Idaho, found themselves with a problem on their hands. McCall was a lovely resort community in Idaho's backcountry with mountain views, a sparkling lake, and plenty of forests. People rushed to build roads and homes there to enjoy the year-round outdoor activities. It was a beautiful place to live. And not just for humans. For centuries, beavers had made the region their home. But what's good for beavers is not necessarily good for humans, and vice versa. So in a unique conservation effort, in 1948 a team from the Idaho Fish and Game Department decided to relocate the McCall beaver colony. In a daring experiment, the team airdropped seventy-six live beavers to a new location. One beaver, playfully named Geronimo, endured countless practice drops, seeming to enjoy the skydives, and led the way as all the beavers parachuted into their new home. Readers and nature enthusiasts of all ages will enjoy this true story of ingenuity and determination.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781585369942
Publisher:	Sleeping Bear Press
Publication date:	04/15/2017
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	385,957
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	AD750L (what's this?)
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

Editorial Reviews

05/01/2017
Striking a down-home tone, Wood (Esquivel!) unspools a real-life story of animal conservation. In 1948 Idaho, beavers presented a dilemma to a growing resort community: “The people were muscling in on the beavers’ habitat. And the beavers were trashing the people’s habitat. A real turf war.” Elmo Heter, an employee with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, relocated the beavers to a pristine wilderness area by gently dropping them in wooden boxes from parachutes. Van Frankenhuyzen (The Legend of the Beaver’s Tail) captures the historical setting in details like a woodie station wagon and copies of Life on Heter’s desk, while his lush, light-infused paintings reveal the region’s natural beauty. Wood’s story underscores the value in bringing innovative thinking to a problem—even a beaver invasion. Ages 6–9. Author’s agent: Caryn Wiseman, Andrea Brown Literary. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

2017-02-20
An Idaho game warden invents an ingenious solution for a growing town's wildlife problem in this tale set in 1948 Idaho.Characterized as "a lovely place" and so portrayed in van Frankenhuyzen's golden meadows and hilly vistas, the town of McCall would be idyllic—except that humans "muscling in" on the local beavers' habitat means that it is vulnerable to flooded roads and downed trees. What to do? Enter Elmo Heter, a beaver expert with a notion that the remote Chamberlain Basin would be a fine place for beavers to live. Wood spins the tale as a yarn ("But Elmo had a problem. A big problem. A big, transportation-type problem") but sticks to historical records in describing how Heter considered and rejected various ways of safely moving the beavers before designing and (with the unwitting assistance of a beaver he calls Geronimo) testing a box that could be parachuted from an airplane and would open automatically upon landing. In her closing note the author reports that the successful airlift moved 76 beavers all told. She also perceptively suggests that communities today would more likely opt either to exterminate or, better, find ways of coexisting with local fauna. Human figures in the illustrations are all white. A true "tail" with a happy ending. (beaver facts, source list) (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews