Did I once know this and just forgot? Did you know? I was stunned to read this paragraph in Donald Tappe’s report. Maybe I was so mortified before by all the inaccuracies it just didn’t register.
I bet you wonder where those beavers went in good ole CCC, don’t you? Well, if you were me, your computer would be cluttered with every paper written by fish and game about beavers in the first fifty years of the 20th century. Leftover from our research days. You could fairly quickly locate this:
Which would let you flip to this.
If this is too small to read, click on it twice to expand. It says that in September and December of 1940, 5 male and 2 female beavers were released in wildcat creek, which flows through tilden and fills lake Anza and Jewel lake. They were released at at an elevation of 50 feet which suggest to me that Mr. Stewart lived somewhere in the area and brought some beavers home to try them out, then tried again at Christmas break. Wildcat creek flows from Alameda County to the mouth of San Pablo bay in Contra Costa. It exits North of Richmond about 35 miles as the beaver swims from Martinez.
In all, 290 beaver were live trapped and released all over California, from Ventura to San Francisco and Plumas counties. Because at that time, the California Department of Fish and Game believed beaver were valuable.
Which is pretty dam amazing.
