Back from the Brink of Extinction: the Eurasian Beaver! This story of successful human efforts to save endangered species inspires urgently needed action to solve the extinction-climate crisis.

FUN FACTS
🦫 One of the largest living rodents, largest rodent native to Eurasia, heaviest rodent after capybara (24-70 lbs), herbivorous, and eats 20% of its weight daily.
🦫 Lives in freshwater systems, in lodges built from soil, branches, and wood debris. An excellent swimmer, it dives for 5-6 minutes, using its broad flat tail as a rudder and danger signal!
🦫 Fur colour differs between regions, ranging from pale brown to blackish. Pairs are monogamous, choose mates that are genetically different, and have 1 litter/year, with 2-6 babies (“kits”).

ECOSYSTEM ROLE
🗝 “Keystone” species, meaning it supports the ecosystem it inhabits.
🌊 Builds dams that create floodplains and wetlands.
🧰 Used in some countries as a wildlife conservation tool!

CONSERVATION STATUS & THREATS
😓 Hunted to near extinction for its fur, meat, and castoreum, a musk-scented secretion believed to have medicinal properties. In 1900, there were only 1,200 beavers across 8 populations.
🎊 Gradually recovered through reintroduction/protection programs, listed as “least concern” on IUCN Red List since 2008, and now over 600,000 are found in Spain, Central Europe, Great Britain, Scandinavia, China, and Mongolia!
❗️Human threats include habitat loss, pollution, hunting/trapping, and Asian populations remain small and fragmented. Natural threats are wolf, lynx, fox, and raptors.

HOW YOU CAN HELP OTHER SPECIES ON THE BRINK
💡Take action toward 3P Sustainability, both individual and collective. How?
🛒 Be a “conscious consumer”: buy less and, when you buy, buy better – shop sustainable products that give back to nature.
🐾 Support “nature-based solutions”: conserve habitat to stop biodiversity loss and climate change. So far, (y)our donations to Rainforest Trust have protected *1,195 acres* of critical land and habitat, home to threatened wildlife, and kept *176,262 mT* of C02 equivalents safely stored.