The Best Piece Of Trivia You Learned This Week: Parachuting Beavers

Transcript

OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:

Welcome back to ASK ME ANOTHER, NPR and WNYC's hour of trivia, puzzles and word games. I'm Ophira Eisenberg, and with me is our one-man house band, Jonathan Coulton and our puzzle guru, Mary Tobler. Coming up, we're going to put our VIP, the start of the new USA sitcom "Benched," Eliza Coupe in the puzzle hot seat.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: But first, every week on Facebook or Twitter we have people send us interesting little trivia tidbits that they have learned. I really enjoyed this one that was sent to us by Christina Jilsone (ph) of New York City. I'm going to ask you Jonathan, do you think this is true or false? After World War II, Idaho moved beavers to new territories by parachute.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: First of all, just imagine if this is true how exciting that would be to look up in the sky and just tons of beavers are parachuting in.

JONATHAN COULTON: If you gave each beaver its own parachute, that's not a particularly cost-effective way of moving a lot of beavers.

EISENBERG: Why do you need beavers in other places? Like, why not...?

COULTON: There are not enough dams.

EISENBERG: So you're saying in Idaho they didn't want to hire humans to build stuff.

COULTON: No, everybody's got to chip in, even the beavers.

EISENBERG: That's right.

COULTON: I don't have a justification, but I'm going to say it's true...

EISENBERG: It's true?

COULTON: ...Because I have a gut feeling.

EISENBERG: Well, you're right.

COULTON: Yeah, see?

EISENBERG: It is true.

COULTON: Why did they move the beavers?

EISENBERG: Because they needed beavers in other place to make dams and it was free labor.

COULTON: That's true?

EISENBERG: Yeah. And they put them - they put a pair in a box.

COULTON: Oh, that's...

EISENBERG: I know. And then they parachuted them around and because beavers travel poorly by truck - they always wanted to make stops and they're always like when are we getting there? - Yes, 76 beavers they moved. Only one didn't make it.

COULTON: Oh no.

EISENBERG: They thought that was amazing.

COULTON: They lost one beaver or one box of beavers?

EISENBERG: No, one beaver in the box. You're right, so the other beaver...

COULTON: Oh no, so that's the sad story right there is there's one beaver who's like hooray, my new friend. We're going to a new place, we're flying for a little while.

EISENBERG: I think that's funny that you think just because they're together in a box they're friends. Have you ever flown a - like AirTran's flight where you're stuck beside someone maybe you don't like...

COULTON: Yeah, that's true. Maybe...

EISENBERG: I'm not saying they should die.

COULTON: Maybe there was foul play.

EISENBERG: That's right. Idaho moved some beavers in parachutes.

COULTON: Good for them.

EISENBERG: And that was after World War II. See? Thank you, Christina Jilsone (ph). We learned something.

(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.