Settled in a quaint burrow in a mountain in upper California, was a young Aplodontia rufa nigra, better known as a Point Arena mountain beaver. This beaver was known as Philip. He was a small, stout little thing. His dull fur was a very dark brown in coloring, as were most other beavers like him (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2017). He did not have a very long tail, nor did anyone else. The tails of Point Arena mountain beavers were barely half of an inch (National Park Service, n.d.).

Philip was just one of nearly one hundred other beavers of his type. There used to be nearly 5,000, but then there was a wildfire that killed around 98% of the population (Hammerson & Williamson, 2016). Perhaps if that hadn’t have happened, Philip could have had more friends. He was an odd beaver, and the only other beaver who could deal with him was called Theodosia. She was nearly just as odd as him.

They both liked to go out during the day, whereas everyone else was usually more active at night (Hammerson, Williamson, 2016). They liked to go to the nearby stream and look at the beavers that lived in the water. Sometimes, they would even go to a stream that was nearly half a mile away and look at all the things there. They would visit with some of the other Point Arena mountain beavers that lived there before returning home.

Occasionally, on their walk back, they would see humans. The humans would be doing a variety of activities. Some would just be walking around with large sticks and a lot of bags and stuff on their bodies.

Others would be in really big, yellow, noisy things that moved the dirt around. Some would even make trees fall (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, 2017).

There was one certain day, when everything quite literally came crashing down. Philip and Theodosia were in their favorite spot. They were sitting there, munching on their favorite snack when suddenly, some large, strange animals appeared. They were different colors, such as brown and black. Others even had white faces. Philip assumed they belonged to the humans because they had tags on their ears. Several went over the burrow system in which Philip, Theodosia and their families lived. Their weight was too much for the systems to handle, causing them all to collapse (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, 2017). Philip and Theodosia immediately went down to see if their family was okay.

Luckily, they had all gone out for a meal and were hidden under all the vegetation. This just meant that they had to go and dig a new burrow system. This was not an easy task, for they wanted to be in a moist area (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, 2017). Any spots around the stream they used to live by were simply filled by other burrow systems. It was very likely that those had also been crushed. Philip and Theodosia decided to take action and find a new place to live. They walked over a mile in one day.

Eventually, they found what seemed to be heaven. All of their favorite foods were around, which included ice plant, cow parsnip, wild radish, sword fern, and many other plants (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, 2017).

They quickly returned to their sleeping families and told them of the good news. After taking a nap in some trees, they all moved out. On their journey to the new promised land, they ran across more people. They were doing all sorts of things, but a lot were cutting down trees. This made the journey more difficult, as Philip and Theodosia used the trees to mark their path. Without the trees, how could they find their way back?

The journey proved to be difficult. Almost impossible. When they had finally found what they thought to be their newly unclaimed land, they saw a horrific sight. Well, they smelled it, considering they relied more heavily on smell (Encyclopedia of Life, n.d.). They smelled something that was unnatural, and saw something that was thick and gray on the ground. It was not natural and it was being poured all over their promised land. Humans seemed to be just spreading it around

Philip, being the odd mountain beaver he was, ventured out in front of the hidden group. However, he went just a bit too far and one of the humans caught sight of him.

“Hey little fella. What are you doing out here?” said the strange human as he put out his hand to Philip. Philip sniffed the hand and got closer. Suddenly, the human swooped Philip into his arms, holding him with such a tight grip, he was unable to move. This person carried him over to his other fellow humans.

“Hey guys! Look what I found. This little dude just came right up to me. What kind of animal is this?” he explained to the other people around him.

“It looks like a muskrat without a tail! What even? Alex, do you know what it is?” (Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, n.d.).