Living as a beaver

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction. Following the sensitive trail of beavers as historian and naturalist

The magic of the moment captured along the Loire

Naturalist encounters

A humanist journey alongside the living

From archives to commitment

Becoming aware of temporalities

Why and how to study beavers?

Studying the animal for itself

Beaver singularity

Inventing cohabitations

A study with a dual naturalistic and historical dimension

For a history of animal behavior

Being an endangered beaver

Pre-histories

A useful beaver, once dead

A pest and hunted beaver

A rare and poorly regarded beaver

Becoming a protected beaver (1890-1940)

Patrimonializing a pest: a major innovation around 1900

Protecting Canadian beavers

From prohibition of destruction to habitat protection: towards the nature reserve

Regain(s)

Reintroducing beavers in the 20th century

Remarkable population recovery still underway

France, between spontaneous return and reintroductions

(Re)colonize!

A new beaver?

The builder beaver of Blois

Ethological surprises

The difficulty of believing in what you see

Are there too many beavers?

Reconciling uses through management or letting go?

Witnessing the ongoing sacralization of a certain wildness

How will humans accept it?

Renaturalizing with beavers

Ecological surprises

Restoring ecosystems with an engineering species

Renaturing and reconciling: towards a national action plan?

Conclusion. Is cohabitation possible?

A beaver that forces humans to question themselves

A beaver creating new worlds

Novelty in natural history

How others see us: the wisdom of humility...

Building the next world

Afterword. Sharing our territories with non-humans and other living beings

References

Glossary