Oh yes, pretty sure you are referring "The Great Beaver"- survey of '82 I think it was.
It showed an overwhelming, and to some in the more 'natural camp', surprising result of beavers preferred to be well kept, clean and weekly manicured. Wax treatment were also mentioned in the survey as the best treatment, giving a softer result, but a bit more painful process, so often used to lesser extent.
Later in '85, correct me if I remember wrong, the great rooster survey, later often referred to as the 'cockarection', performed under the slogan "How to raise a cock with a loving firm hand", showed the same results among roosters and their handlers, especially their handlers; well kept, clean and strictly manicured was preferred by the waste majority of handlers.
The comity heard rumors about bad-mouthing regarding the slogan, but never got any meat on the matter, so to speak.
In the rooster survey there were also some strange outlier results that they never go to the root of, or could not land the balls on, as some say. There were some survey results mentioning of "to avoid hairy teeth", but the handwriting was a bit bad, so it could have been a typo of sorts, and those remain a mystery to this very day.
There were also reported some strange outliers in "The Great Beaver"- survey. There were reported cases of 'cushion for the pushin' and references to cats, but also here, they were not able to get good answers, even after searching all cracks.
So that was today's zoology session. More sessions can be held, on requests that is.
A clean beaver is a happy beaver.