S8 Ep370: Leila Philip shares the story of Dorothy Richards, who established "Beaver Sprite" in the 1930s as the country's first beaver sanctuary, eventually living with over a dozen beavers inside her home. Anecdotes illustrate the animals' engineering instincts,
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
Leila Philip shares the story of Dorothy Richards, who established "Beaver Sprite" in the 1930s as the country's first beaver sanctuary, eventually living with over a dozen beavers inside her home. Anecdotes illustrate the animals' engineering instincts, such as a beaver moving a plumber's chair to maintain the most efficient path for its construction work.
Transcript
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| 0:51.9 | I'm John Bass with Professor Leila Phill Philip, the author of Beaverland, |
| 0:56.3 | how one weird rodent made America. |
| 0:58.7 | This is everything you never knew to ask about beavers. |
| 1:01.5 | Well, here they are, and that question arises in the 1930s, hard-scrabble America. |
| 1:09.1 | We go to Little Falls, New York, with the professor. Little Falls was once, |
| 1:13.5 | I learned these things from the professor. It was once the cheese capital of America. Did Wisconsin |
| 1:18.0 | know this? Apparently, it's at the end of the Mohawk River Valley, but it attracted a young |
| 1:24.6 | family, and Dorothy Richards was born there in the early part of this of the 20th century. |
| 1:30.9 | And she grew up to be a beaver whisper. |
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