Beaver Fever! Sherri Tippe gives a dam about Colorado's beaver population

That's not going to happen if Tippie can help it. If she's not boosting a beaver's self-esteem on a trip into the wilderness, then she's spreading the good word about beaver as habitat generators to a crowd of Utah wildlife professionals. Or wading into a filthy stream somewhere, or haranguing a golf-course operator. Or taking a break from the arduous installation of a Castor Master to field questions from curious passersby, assuring them that the felling of trees slows down once a dam is built and that beaver, contrary to myth, are not responsible for the spread of giardia in mountain streams. ("I had giardia for my thirtieth high-school reunion," she tells one astonished stranger, "and I lost so much weight I looked great!") Or introducing people who want to build their own Castor Masters and Beaver Deceivers to her step-by-step handbook, Working With Beaver for Better Habitat Naturally!

"People want to do what I'm doing," she says. "The State of Washington now wants to relocate beaver. But who are they going to let do it? Trappers."

Sherri Tippie has found new homes for hundreds of beaver threatened by Front Range development, including this refugee from Aurora.

Tippie and wildlife ecologist Ashley DeLaup inspect a beaver dam on Bear Creek in southwest Denver.

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VIDEO:

Sherri Tippie leads a beaver-trapping mission.

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• Ashley DeLaup
• Nature and the Environment
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She hurls the word like it was an obscenity. If they don't kill the animals outright, she figures, professional trappers still won't talk to them. They won't care about keeping the families intact.

They have no idea what it takes, what it means to put your heart and soul into the work. How you end up exhausted and soaked and happy all at the same time, grateful to be as busy as a big, wet rodent, building a home and a refuge and storing up treasures for the long winter to come.