Dorothy Burney Richards

Dorothy Burney Richards (April 7, 1894 – August 1, 1985) was an American conservationist. She is known for founding and operating Beaversprite with her husband Al Richards. Beaversprite is a tamed beaver sanctuary in Fulton County, New York.

Early life Richards was born in Little Falls, New York in 1894 to James G. Burney and Laura Crouse Burney. She had two siblings, Marian and Jack. She married Allison "Al" Richards in 1920. He worked as a forester until the Great Depression, for which he and Dorothy moved throughout New York State and Canada. They returned to Little Falls in 1930, where they purchased an office supply firm. They also purchased and restored a dilapidated cottage about ten miles to the northeast of Little Falls, at the base of the Adirondacks. Richards became a vegetarian to "strengthen the statement she wanted her life to make."

The Richards began purchasing adjacent land to establish a nature sanctuary, initially using borrowed funds. The Richards dug a beaver pool in their basement, fed by the nearby stream, which would be enlarged later on.

Later, they replaced the cottage's woodshed with an enclosed concrete pool they called "The Y", for its resemblance to the swimming pool at a YMCA. At the time eleven beavers lived indoors. Al retired in 1957 and Dorothy ran the business for some time afterward. She played a role, with other advocates, in the beaver becoming the official state animal of New York in 1975. In 1977 she wrote an autobiographical book about the sanctuary, Beaversprite, with Hope Sawyer Buyukmihci, a writer and owner of a beaver sanctuary near Vineland, New Jersey.

In 1966, Dorothy donated her home and 735 acres of land to the Florence Waring Erdman Trust, a Philadelphia-based sponsor of wildlife sanctuaries. Girard Bank, later to merge with Mellon Bank, managed the trust; the Natural Lands Trust managed the land on behalf of the Erdman Trust after 1983. The Erdman Trust added land to the sanctuary, and in 1973 opened a nature center on 1300 acres. Richards was critical of how the sanctuary was being managed, calling the managers of the property "sneaky underhanded nitwits." Her will also left $1 million "for the creation of wildlife sanctuaries in memory of her mother, Florence Jones Reineman, where hunting, trapping and fishing would be prohibited."

The Utica Zoo acquired Beaversprite in 2020 and reopened it to the public as the Beaversprite Nature Center.

The achievements and dedication of Richards are part of the celebration of International Beaver Day on her birthday, April 7.