The figure of the beaver often comes up in stories of ecological collapse and restoration. With the goal of reframing beaver imaginaries from the usual humanized portrayals of the beaver as a busy industrialist master-builder, ecosystem engineer, or a tireless worker, we trace how the beaver is imagined in a range of interdisciplinary practices, such as nature conservation, ecosystem management, experimental rewilding practices, performance art, theater and video games. In the presentation we will begin by providing an assembled overview of the way that artistic/ research practices engage with beaver imaginaries, followed up by an evaluation of these stories and practices along a range of semiotic tools. We will examine how researchers use the figure of the beaver to model changing earth/ climate/ weather systems, how the beaver is adopted as a role model for modeling natural environments, how the agency of the beaver is figured/ narrativized by researchers, as well as the thematic roles that researchers impose upon the animal. Reflecting on how semiotic tools allow positioning such stories and practices within broader ecological narratives of the Earth System, our goal is to develop Castorosemiotics (‘castor’ meaning beaver in latin) as an experimental approach for the Earth System Sciences.