The path to the future requires
understanding the past and how current
and historic human activities have
defined our present situation. Before
European settlement of North America,
the continent’s beaver population was
between 60 to 400 million, according
to estimates from historic data of
trapping harvests (Naiman et al. 1988).
It was the quest for “brown gold” that
stimulated much of the early exploration
and colonization of the New World,
where beaver pelts were commonly
used as currency. The first waves of fur
traders and trappers emanated from the
Northeast coast and the mouth of the
Mississippi River. By the early 1900s,
beaver populations in the continental
U.S. and southern Canada were nearly
eradicated.