![]() To understand why this was such a loss requires Goldfarb to invoke the specter of shifting baselines, which he poetically describes as long-term amnesia: “every year we lose more and remember less”. This sad chapter in history is explored more in-depth in Fur, Fortune and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America and Once They Were Hats: In Search of the Mighty Beaver, but Goldfarb gives a good overview of the scale of the onslaught as trappers caught beavers by the tens of thousands in mere decades. ![]() ![]() Bison, wolves, and the passenger pigeon are some of the better-known examples of animals that were virtually extirpated (see some suggested reading below), but there was an equally lively trade in beaver pelts. To understand how we got to where we are, Goldfarb recounts the heydays of the American frontier times, when white settlers fanned out over the USA, killing, trapping, and hunting anything that moved. ![]() “ Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter“, written by Ben Goldfarb, published by Chelsea Green Publishing in July 2018 (hardback, 287 pages)Įager mixes equal measures environmental history with reportage on ongoing conservation and wildlife reintroduction programmes. ![]()
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