page_title: Beaver
section_title: Trapping
hierarchical_section_title: Beaver / Commercial uses / Trapping
caption_attribution_description: Photos from a Fall 2010 free walk at Meadowbrook Pond, where we learned about the beavers that make their home there. Please see the Seattle Natural Selection blog for a post on the event.
context_page_description: The beaver is a large, primarily nocturnal, semiaquatic rodent. Castor includes two extant species, the North American beaver and Eurasian beaver. Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges. They are the second-largest rodent in the world. Their colonies create one or more dams to provide still, deep water to protect against predators, and to float food and building material. The North American beaver population was once more than 60 million, but as of 1988 was 6–12 million. A similar trend occurred in Europe, with only around 1200 individuals remaining at the turn of the 20th Century. This population decline is the result of extensive hunting for fur, for glands used as medicine and perfume, and because the beavers' harvesting of trees and flooding of waterways may interfere with other land uses.
context_section_description: Beavers have been trapped for millennia, and this continues to this day. Beaver pelts were used for barter by Native Americans in the 17th century to gain European goods. They were then shipped back to Great Britain and France where they were made into clothing items. Widespread hunting and trapping of beavers led to their endangerment. Eventually, the fur trade declined due to decreasing demand in Europe and the takeover of trapping grounds to support the growing agriculture sector. A small resurgence in beaver trapping has occurred in some areas where there is an over-population of beaver; trapping is done when the fur is of value, and the remainder of the animal may be used as feed. In the 1976/1977 season, 500,000 beaver pelts were harvested in North America.
caption: A beaver pelt. Beaver pelts were the driving force of the North American fur trade.
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