A small black rodent with long white whiskers is gently held in gloved hands, its claws visible.
An endangered Point Arena mountain beaver (Aplodontia rufa nigra) is held and examined in an undated photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The blackish, burrow-dwelling rodent — the smallest and darkest of the mountain beaver subspecies — is found only in coastal western Mendocino County and has been federally endangered since 1991. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Bay City News)

MENDOCINO CO., 7/5/26 — In a damp burrow in the coastal scrub of Point Arena, an animal is drinking. It will drink again within the hour, and again after that, all day, every day, for its whole life. If it stops, it dies.

This is the Point Arena mountain beaver, and this thin strip of foggy Mendocino coast is the only place on earth it lives. It is not a true beaver, and it does not live on a mountain. That’s the kind of animal we’re dealing with.

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