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Patagonia has two primary habitats, the forest and the steppe - the latter a wind-blasted, arid grassland whose paucity of trees seemed likely to limit beavers’ spread. The beavers easily swam glacier-scoured fjords between the islands, dispersing throughout both the Argentine and Chilean sides of Tierra del Fuego.
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The beavers, however, in the absence of North American predators like wolves and bears, flourished. The disastrous experiment was launched in 1946, when Argentina relocated 20 Canadian beavers to Tierra del Fuego, ostensibly to “enrich” local wildlife diversity for tourism and foster a home-grown fur industry.Īt the time the transplants arrived, beaver pelts were at a premium on the world market, but the fur industry in Tierra del Fuego never took off. Until, that is, an ill-conceived scheme unleashed nature’s architects on a landscape that had never known their teeth - and forever impacting ecosystems at the bottom of the world. But the mammals never ventured beyond northern Mexico, leaving Central and South America historically beaverless.
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Cottonwoods produce distasteful tannins to deter chewing.īefore European traders set about turning beaver fur into fancy hats, beavers roamed most of the North American continent, damming up streams from the Arctic tundra-line to the Mojave Desert. Willow, a favorite snack, resprouts multiple stems when it’s gnawed down, like a hydra regrowing heads. In fact, modern beavers have populated North America for 7.5 million years, giving flora and fauna plenty of time to adapt. By building dams and forming ponds, beavers serve as landscape developers, creating watery habitat for a menagerie of tenants. Castor canadensis, the North American beaver, is the ultimate keystone species, that rare creature that supports an entire ecosystem. Taking this analogy one step further, if humans are the worlds most influential mammals, beavers might logically claim second place. What do I mean? As a species, we’re constantly driven to modify our environments to maximize its provision of food and shelter. While all organisms have evolved to fill naturally-provided niches, neither beavers nor humans are content to leave it at that. beavers are among our closest ecological and technological kin. When you think about it, and despite our wildly divergent evolutionary lineages. You can find Masami online at l and share your hair on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter.EPostcard #107: Leave it to Beaver (Tierra del Fuego) This episode was sponsored by Masami, the ultimate in botanically hydrated hair.