2013: Belarus fisherman dies after being repeatedly bitten on the thigh by a beaver. The beaver population of Belarus has doubled as demand for pelts declines.
1767: According to the Comte de Buffon, beavers in the wild posses “even an aversion to blood and carnage, they have not the smallest propensity to hostility or rapine.”
How prescient was this essay by John Jeremiah Sullivan? And now he’s writing about their consciousness and intelligence.
