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$45 — apparently paid before the good doctor’s descendants sported gray beards.
Then in 1940, Billy’s estranged wife deserted Shenandoah.
“It is believed that our lone beaver has left the park and gone on down Hughes River,” Superintendent Lassiter wrote.
The park’s repopulation attempts ended with her departure, although years later, the beavers would do it by themselves, climbing the mountain on their own stubby legs to reclaim Blue Ridge streams.
In his administrative history, Mr. Lambert notes that an effort also was made to bring back the wild turkey. Six turkeys were released at the head of Nicholson Hollow and five near Jeremy’s Run in March 1938.
Superintendent Lassiter also arranged for 70 more to be delivered from the state's game propagation farm in the spring of 1940, but Mr. Lambert could find no records of when or where they were turned loose or how they fared.
He reports in his administrative history that turkeys gradually became more abundant after being considered “exceedingly rare” for many years. The population explosion came “maybe from the park’s ef- f fort but just as likely from game commission releases not far from the park.” he wrote.
Trout in the park’s streams had been decimated, first by abuse from two-legged fishermen and second by the freaks of nature with alternating floods and droughts.
In cooperation with the Virginia Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries, the mountain streams were restocked continuously until 1955.
“There have always been trout in these streams,” noted retired ranger Bob Johnson, who spent his boyhood in what became the park and served in Shenandoah for 40 years. “The trout just didn’t have as many enemies (as other wild things).”
In 1942, rangers completed a wildlife count. They found three cougar, 37 bobcat, 27 deer and 64 turkey. ■
In 1951, beaver were reported cutting pitch pine along the Big Run and feeding on willows just outside the park boundary.
By 1955, visitors were spotting deer and bear from the Skyline Drive.
“Bobcats, gray fox, skunks and raccoons are common in the woods. And rabbits, gray squirrels, chipmunks and woodchucks are frequently encountered along the roadsides,” wrote Richard Manville that year in his Mammals of Shenandoah National Park.
The healing had begun.
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