You’ve probably heard the story of Idaho’s parachuting beavers. Ten years ago, our Senior Producer, Samantha Wright, first told everyone the story of how Idaho Fish and Game dropped beavers by parachute into what is now the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area in 1948.
There were beavers in the way of new home building in the McCall area, not enough of the mammals in the wilderness and a lot of leftover World War II parachutes, and from that, an idea was born. The 75 beavers who parachuted in, and their many ancestors, helped create some of the amazing habitat in the area.
Our story back in 2015 went viral, and then went around the world when we published actual footage from Fish and Game of the beavers dropping from planes in their wooden boxes.
The parachuting beaver became our station mascot and has inspired everything from books to t-shirts, and now … an outdoor mural at the Sun Valley Museum of Art called "The Engineer."
Artist Ethan Murrow painted the huge picture; he’s on the faculty at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston at Tufts. He joined Idaho Matters to talk more about the mural.
