Nibi the Beaver’s Future Reached the Courts. Then the Massachusetts Governor Stepped In.

This is a story about wildlife, about bureaucracy, about politics, about the internet.

But, ultimately, it is a story about a beaver.

It started two years ago when a baby beaver, just a few days old and weighing one pound, was found alongside a busy road in Sturbridge, Mass., a town 20 miles east of Springfield.

There were “no parents in sight,” said Jane Newhouse, the president and founder of Newhouse Wildlife Rescue in Chelmsford, near Boston. And that was a problem.

“A baby beaver as small as she was is not supposed to be out of the lodge,” she said, referring to the structures of sticks and mud in which beavers live. “The only entrance to a beaver dam is through the water, and when they are little they can’t even dive.”

As with most wildlife rescues, the goal was to eventually release her back into the wild, which is where rehabilitators believe they belong. But with this beaver, that goal proved difficult. Efforts to find her parents, including placing her at the edge of the nearby pond and letting her cry, were unsuccessful.

“The dens are in the middle of ponds,” Ms. Newhouse said. “It’s very difficult with beavers in general.”

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