History of tf)e Adirondack P>e&ver 



(Castor canadensis, Kuhl.) 



Its Former Abundance, Practical Extermination, and 



Reintrodaction 



By Harry V. Radford, M.Sc, C.E. 



BEAVER CHIPS. 



'OR at least thirty years the errone- 

 ous opinion has been held, almost 

 universally, that the beaver 

 became extinct within the borders of 

 New York State sometime about the 

 middle of the last century. Not 

 only has this opinion prevailed among 

 the masses of the people, but it has 

 been shared by many persons whose special interests, either as naturalists 

 or sportsmen, would seem calculated to promote careful investigation, 

 leading to the discovery of the facts. What seems especially surpris- 

 ing is that most of the people residing within the Adirondack region — the 

 portion of the State in which the last families of beavers have taken 

 refuge for half a century — do not know to-day, and have not known for 

 many years, of the existence within their own territory of lineal descend- 

 ants of the original beaver stock. 



Until three or four years ago, when a more general interest in the 

 history of the New York beaver was aroused, through an organized effort 

 commenced by the State, at the writer's solicitation, to repopulate our 

 northern forest with these valuable and interesting fur-bearers, hardly one 

 in ten of the guides, hunters, trappers and lumbermen, who spend a large 

 part of their lives in the woods of the Adirondacks, knew that there were 

 any wild beavers remaining; while among the farmers, mechanics and others 



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