SPECIAL REPORT
ALMOST ELIMINATED Before European settlement, an estimated 100 million beavers populated North America. The species was nearly wiped out by commercial trapping between the early 18th and 20th centuries. Numbers have since rebounded slightly to roughly 10 percent of precolonial times.
Leave It to Beavers
Under the right conditions, these big, chisel-toothed rodents are transforming Montana’s environments (mostly) for the better. BY TOM DICKSON
PHOTO BY ALEX BADYAEV
18 | MONTANA OUTDOORS | MAY–JUNE 2022
MONTANA OUTDOORS | MAY–JUNE 2022 | 19