Get Wild This beaver kit was rescued in Aurora and relocated with three siblings and its parents to a private ranch in the mountains. Photo by Sarah Koenigsberg / TheBeaverBelievers.com In Summit County, beavers are neighbors to ranchers and urban dwellers, and in both cases, their reputation has not fared well. They flood fields and roads with their dams and find ornamental trees in town irresistibly yummy. They’re called nuisance beavers, but things are changing. Biologists have long documented how beaver ponds enrich the ecological habitat for innumerable species of plants and animals, and as people realize the toll of global extinctions and the grave loss of biodiversity, a different descriptor for beavers is gaining traction: keystone species.