In August 1948, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game dropped 76 live beavers by parachute into the remote Chamberlain Basin as part of a relocation project (often called the "beaver drop" rather than "Operation High Dive"). The effort moved nuisance beavers away from human towns into the wilderness.... After World War II, beavers were causing trouble in the resort town of McCall, Idaho, chewing down trees and clogging irrigation ditches. Instead of killing them, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game decided to move them to the remote Chamberlain Basin, deep in the backcountry. There was one problem. Hauling them in by horseback took days, and many beavers overheated and died along the way. A Fish and Game employee named Elmo Heter came up with a better idea. Using leftover Army parachutes from the war, he designed lightweight wooden boxes that held two beavers each and popped open when they hit the ground. The plan worked. Of the 76 beavers dropped, only one died, after chewing its way out of its box in midair. The rest went on to build dams and new colonies across the basin. Footage of the drop sat forgotten for decades until it was rediscovered in the state’s archives, restored and shared online, where it went viral. Before the real drop, Heter tested his boxes on an old male beaver the team named Geronimo. After being dropped over and over again, Geronimo reportedly started climbing back into the box on his own. He was rewarded with a spot on the first flight, along with three female companions. #archaeohistories