From a population crash of nearly 100 percent to a full-blown ecological comeback, the strange, occasionally airborne story of how North America's biggest rodent came back from the edge. Here's a number worth sitting with: at one point, North America was home to somewhere between 60 million and 400 million beavers. By the turn of the 20th century, that number had crashed to roughly 100,000. Not a typo. A wipeout on a scale most endangered species never even approach, and one that happened almost entirely because European fashion houses wanted felt hats.
Also Read: Snakes once had legs: Here's how they lost them 100 million years ago
