Leave It to Beavers

It's a jungle out there. Beavers, for so long considered one of the animal kingdom's hardest workers, are proliferating faster than they can paddle. According to a Colorado environmental group, Wildlife 2000, their numbers have swelled to more than 6 million, maybe as many as 12 million. Animal-rights activists have crippled the fur trade, and killing helpless animals for sport is no longer fashionable. The result is that these mindlessly multiplying creatures are chewing up more trees than anyone can count. It is foolhardy to suggest that the anti-fur-coat folks should now retreat and give thousands of women -- not to say the environment -- a break. It is not crazy, however, to provide the beavers with contraceptives, so Wildlife 2000 has arranged to trap beavers, sort out the females and fit them with Norplant, the birth-control device. It might work, says Montana veterinarian Jay Kirkpatrick, who has used Norplant successfully on skunks. Inasmuch as beavers are such eager workers, it will be interesting to see if they suffer from angst as they try, try, try to have babies and fail, fail, fail.