The problem has been to come up with feasible earthly solutions. Biologists scoff at mass sterilization, arguing that it would traumatize the beavers and cost $200 for each procedure. Other ideas are no less impractical: David Prather, head of the Truckee Meadows Earth Club. suggested shipping the animals, to his mother’s property in, Pennsylvania–a plan vetoed by the Eastern state’s wildlife officials. As a stopgap, the Nevada Humane Society is organizing tree-wrapping days during which volunteers cover 1,700 potentially endangered trees with a protective layer of chicken wire, at a cost of $10 each. “Wrapping is something we will have to do on a continual basis,” warns Rich Heap of the wildlife department. Officials fear the flat-tailed rodents might eventually pollute the city’s water supply–and lose all I public sympathy. “The river cannot sustain the deluge,” says fish conservationist John Champion. “Beavers are not the cute characters [in] hard hats that we see in Saturday morning cartoons.”
