WHEN BEAVERS MOVE IN

How beavers change their environment…and sometimes must be moved out when their behavioral changes threaten human settlements.

In Donovan’s luminous, cleanly drawn close-up illustrations, industrious beavers chew down logs, build dams, and dig channels—actions that, Stevens clearly explains, change forests to wetlands that not only draw insects, fish, and other wild creatures but protect the entire habitat from drought and wildfires alike. Sometimes beavers can be seen as pests—for instance, when they build dams near residential areas and the resulting pools threaten to flood. The Northwest Coastal Tulalip Tribes sponsor a beaver removal program, depicted here in operation with two scientists setting cage traps and safely transporting a beaver family to a remote area of the Cascade Mountains. With hardly a pause to get their bearings, the creatures set to work, and their tree chewing and dam building soon create a habitat that brings back salmon and other wild flora and fauna that had gone missing. The author closes with further facts about beavers and a URL that leads to more information about the tribal project. Indigenous and other figures in the pictures show some variation in skin color.

Simple, lucid, and winning, with illustrations rich in visual appeal.