A proposal to replace the beaver — described by one senator as a “dentally defective rat” — with a polar bear as Canada’s national emblem provoked rebukes from across the nation on Friday.
Canadian Senator Nicole Eaton called for the adoption of the cold-loving polar bear, the world’s largest walking carnivore, as a new symbol of Canada.
“It is high time that the beaver step aside as a Canadian emblem or, at the least, share the honor with the stately polar bear,” she said in the Canadian Senate on Thursday.
The lawmaker lauded the polar bear’s “strength, courage, resourcefulness and dignity,” calling it “Canada’s most majestic and splendid mammal, holding reign over the Arctic for thousands of years.”
Canadians, however, reacted venomously to the proposal.
“The beaver is a proud emblem that is represented throughout Canada,” said one blog posting. “Why would anyone want to replace it with a carnivore that only lives in areas that are nearly uninhabitable by humans and may soon become extinct?”
Glynnis Hood of the University of Alberta and author of The Beaver Manifesto released last month, also defended the beaver as Canada’s national emblem, telling the daily National Post that the buck-toothed rodent “represents tenacity, intelligence and an ability to survive even the harshest climates.”
The beaver only officially became a national symbol in 1975, but it has a venerable place in Canadian history.
Early French and English colonists were lured into North America’s wilds to trap beavers for their pelts, used for fur hats in Europe.
Their population was estimated at 6 million in Canada at the start of the lucrative fur trade, but they were nearly hunted to extinction before the trend in fashion turned to silk top-hats in the mid-19th century.
The beaver has since made a comeback. The world’s largest beaver dam, a huge 850m long, was discovered last year on the southern edge of Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Alberta Province.
As a symbol, the beaver first appeared on a coat of arms in 1621 in what is now Nova Scotia Province, as well as on the crests of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, the first Canadian stamp and elsewhere.
Today, a massive stone beaver sits above the entrance to the Canadian Parliament and appears on the back of Canadian nickels.
The polar bear, its supporters point out, appears on the C$2 coin, “making it worth 40 beavers.
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