Emily Fairfax

That's old news.

But other things were a little bit different.

I was taking teams of artists out into the field and showing them beaver ponds firsthand.

I was watching early versions of the film when they were still hand-drawn sketches and providing feedback on it.

Is this scientifically accurate?

Yes or no?

And if no, does it matter?

Give me an example of a sketch that you had to, like, give feedback on.

The size of the beavers was actually one thing.

We have a tendency to imagine beavers as quite small, like bunnies or muskrats.

But a beaver is 40 to 110 pounds as an adult.

Wow.

So making sure that they are properly sized without looking monstrous on the screen was one of the things we talked about.

Keeping the teeth orange was important.

Making sure that they were appropriately round and awkward and cumbersome because that's what beavers are.

We don't need to make them something they're not.

It matters a lot if something is accurate, if what you're saying has potential to change how people behave towards beavers in not a good way.

So, what I really didn't want them to show was beavers eating fish.

Beavers do not eat fish.

The media has already done us dirty on this with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and that beaver family serves up a big old plate of fish.