When the wall crumbles and the polarities shift (and they will shift) and folks across the country start to advocate for beavers because they are so good for wildlife and wetlands and habitat and climate change and salmon and drought and you know-EVERYTHING. The very first federal agency to change their stripes won’t be fish and game, or the secretary of the interior, or god forbid USDA. The first ones to the ‘reasonable stewardship table’ will be these guys. USFS. The forestry people who say things like this:
A unique relationship exists between moose, beaver and willow communities, with each component influencing the persistence of the other. Browsing of willow communities by the inflated moose population of the 1960s and 1970s was detrimental to willows at that time, especially in the absence of beaver. Today, a more vigorous beaver population has helped willow communities proliferate, and the Forest Service is interested in maintaining the health of these communities in order to benefit the declining moose population, which is highly dependent upon willow, especially in the winter months.
