Hi, I'm Mackin. Welcome to Species. For today's bonus episode, I'm going to tell you three

amazing animal anecdotes. A story about parachuting beavers, another about how sparrows figuring out

how to open a door, and the origin of Pikachu. Our regular

weekly Sunday episode is like a cupcake, a muffin of science and history with a frosting of

stories. Today is all frosting. I hope you enjoy.

In 2015, Fish and Game historian Sharon Clark uncovered a mysterious mislabeled tape from over half a century ago.

The footage from Idaho shows people tagging the ears of live beavers before packing them up in wooden boxes.

Some beavers are paired by size and weight and packaged in groups of two. Others are apparently put into their own individual boxes.

Now, this is a kind of weird scene, but it's explicable. You can maybe think of why someone might want to do this. Maybe they are counting beavers or transporting them on ground or something. In the next scene,

however, rationality flies out the door, and well, so to the beavers.

Literally.

The next shot shows a beaver box being thrown out the door of a plane into the wilderness.

The box plummets towards the earth, and, after a moment of fear for the beaver's life,

a parachute attached to the box catches the air, and the beaver's fall is slowed dramatically.

Then, the beaver box lands clumsily, and a beaver who looks rather unfazed, pokes his head out of the box.

Then, almost nonchalantly, the beaver strolled away, looking like an action figure walking away

from an explosion. You can almost imagine that the beaver signed up for the whole affair.

In reality, this casual swagger the beaver walks with is likely the result of extreme

disorientation. The video says they dropped 20 beavers in this manner, and the commentary makes it

seem like, well, just another day.

The plane makes a careful approach, ready for the drop. Now, into the air and down they swing,

down to the ground near a stream or a lake. The box opens, and a most unusual and novel trip

...