Beavers returning to Britain next year

[Snowden]

Beavers returning to Britain next year

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:16 AM on 27th May 2008


The European beaver is to be reintroduced to the wild in Britain 500 years since it last graced these shores, Scottish environment minister Mike Russell has announced.

He has given the go-ahead for up to four beaver families to be released in Knapdale, Argyll, on a trial basis next spring.

The beaver was hunted to extinction in this country in the 16th century for its fur.



The European beaver is to be reintroduced to the wild in the UK on a trial basis

Mr Russell said today: "I am delighted that this wonderful species will be making a comeback.

"They are charismatic, resourceful little mammals and I fully expect their reappearance in Knapdale to draw tourists from around the British Isles - and even further afield."

Other parts of Europe, with a similar landscape to Scotland, have reintroduced beavers with positive ecological benefits, he added.

The trial will be run by the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland over the next five years, with Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) to monitor the progress.

The beavers will be captured in Norway later this year and released into the wild next spring.

"I very much hope to see them flourish in the woods of Knapdale and lay the foundation for a wider reintroduction in other parts of Scotland," Mr Russell added.

Professor Colin Galbraith, Director of Policy and Advice for SNH today welcomed the decision.

"For the first time we will have the opportunity to see how beavers fit into the Scottish countryside in a planned and managed trial," he said.

"No other beaver reintroduction project in Europe has gone through such a long, and thorough, process of preparation, assessment and examination."

Beavers are vegetarian, felling waterside trees to eat their bark and leaves. They can weigh up to 35kg and live for around 10 years in the wild.

Although beavers have been spotted in the wild in isolated cases in the UK, they have usually been caught and returned to zoos, Professor Galbraith added.

Allan Bantick, Chair of the Scottish Beaver Trial Steering Group, said it was a "historic moment" for wildlife conservation.

He added: "By bringing these useful creatures back to their native environment we will have the chance to restore a missing part of our wetland ecosystems and re-establish much needed natural processes."

David Windmill, Chief Executive of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, said: "This is excellent news.

"It is a strong and visible sign of the Scottish Government's commitment to carrying out conservation in Scotland and re-building our depleted biodiversity."

Simon Milne, Chief Executive of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, said the challenge now is for the licence holders to fundraise for the project.

Beavers returning to Britain next year | Mail Online

[Snowden]

Viva The Beaver! After 800 years away, the British rodent is back and dam busy


By Jane Fryer
Last updated at 11:20 PM on 20th June 2008






The dam built by two beavers at the Escot Estate in Devon

After five hours of waiting by the side of their muddy brown pond in the drizzly rain, I'm going off Mr and Mrs Beaver. I can hear them - snuffling and rustling and generally beavering about in the bulrushes less than a yard from where I'm standing.

I can smell them - a warm, dark, musty smell that lingers among the long grass and silvery cow parsley. And I'm surrounded by their handiwork - a 3ft-high dam, a flooded stream, a huge tree trunk gnawed down to an inch in diameter, and neatly chewed sticks everywhere.

But however hard I stare and despite their considerable size - 30 kilos and 3ft long - I can't see them and, as darkness approaches and the shivering sets in, for me at least, their furry, beady-eyed, big-toothed appeal is on the wane.

My guide for the day, however, couldn't be more enthusiastic.

'They're brilliant . . . fascinating, full of character, busy as bees and amazing engineers, don't you think?' says John-Michael Kennaway, owner of the Escot Estate, a stately home and conservation park open to the public in Ottery St Mary, Devon. 'I'm sorry, I get terribly passionate about beavers - but just look at that dam, isn't it brilliant?'


To be fair, it is pretty impressive. Three feet high, 6ft across and immaculately constructed in just over a fortnight - by two fat furry rodents with very short legs - from logs, sticks and stones, cemented together with little beaver pawfuls of mud, bark, leaves and twigs.


'It's an extraordinary feat. And now they've finished it, they're out every night tending it, patching it up and finessing it with mud and reeds. Or at least he is - she's been hiding away in their lodge.'

It is also the first such dam to be built in England for 800 years, which has caused quite a stir among beaver enthusiasts and conservationists generally.

And, to make matters even more exciting, it looks like the busy beavers have been doing more than just building and eating.





Almost human: Beaver come second only to humans for their ability to manipulate their environment


'At first it was impossible to tell them apart, but then one of them got bigger and bigger, then they were both rushing about with mouthfuls of grass and straw, and lately one of them has barely been out of the lodge,' he says.

'We're hoping she's had young [known as kits] and is now in there milk-feeding, but we won't know for sure for another few weeks. It'd be so thrilling to have native genetic stock here in Britain after so long.'

It has certainly been a while. The European beaver (Castor fiber) was once as much a part of Britain's aquatic ecosystem as the otter or water vole. But while it evolved over five million years ago, it was hunted to extinction in England and Wales in the 12th century, and in Scotland in the 1600s.





Out for a paddle: one of the two beavers pops up for a swim


While it might look like a strange, lumpy cross between a small, fat bear and a huge water vole, this inoffensive herbivore - no, they don't eat fish - had rather too much going for it to be left alone. Like the fabulously soft, thick (more than 77,000 hairs per square inch) and waterproof fur that made such lovely hats, coats and gloves.

And the flat, scaly, spatula-shaped tale - known as a scoop - which allowed Roman Catholics to class the animal as fish and allow them to eat it on Fridays and during Lent. (It tastes like chicken, apparently, and is still eaten by the Finns, who like it roasted, ideally with a creamy mushroom sauce.)

And then there's the castoreum, a musky secretion from the anal glands which contains salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin - and which you can still buy on eBay in America and is believed to cure headaches, fever and hysteria.

By the end of the 19th century there were fewer than 1,200 European beavers in isolated pockets across the continent. But during the past 35 years, conservationists have successfully reintroduced beavers across Europe and numbers - more than 600,000 - are booming.

Everywhere, that is, apart from Portugal, Italy and, of course, England, where there are just 15 pairs all living in fenced enclosures - under the Wildlife and Countryside Act it is illegal to release a beaver into the wild in case they get too industrious with their razor-sharp, enamel-coated fangs. The largest recorded dam for a European beaver was in Russia, measuring nearly 400ft long, more than 3ft high and up to 3ft wide.






They're also terribly clever. Their dams are intricate and effective - a big deep pool of static water sits above, while a small trickle filters through. And built for a reason.

'Beavers are conditioned to feel vulnerable when they're out of the water,' explains John-Michael. 'This stream was too shallow for them to travel up it submerged, so they dammed it to raise the water level.

'All the other "English" beavers live in enclosures with lakes, so there's been no need.'

Even gnawing trees is more scientific than it looks. They chew a ring around the base of the trunk, so that the tree falls towards the water, creating a reservoir that protects the beaver's young - usually three 'kits' a year - and food stores.

Piling up logs neatly - they have a handy gap between their incisors and back teeth to carry logs and sticks - causes the water level to rise until it conceals a tunnel giving the beavers entrance to their lodge.

The water level can be adjusted by moving logs in the dam.

And their family life is rather touching. They have one partner for life and once they've had their young - sorry, kits - they live like a human family in their lodge.

If they have another litter the following year, they'll simply extend the lodge, building on another chamber - until eventually, when they're 18 months to two years old, the young are encouraged to move out.

If things get a bit hot and sweaty with all those hairy bodies inside, they just pop a couple of air flues in to cool things down a bit.






'In the winter you can see their hot steamy breath coming out through the vents,' says John-Michael, who has long been obsessed with promoting British species - the beavers have joined wild boar, red squirrels, otters, water voles and birds of prey at Escot.

His love affair with Europe's biggest rodent began during a trip to Poland in 2006, where he watched a group of beavers acting like mobile chainsaws in a freezing river.

'They were wonderful, just brilliant, and the moment I saw them I knew I had to have some.'

This pair are from Bavaria (where the beaver population is controlled by culling and relocating), caught by moonlight in nets, transported across Europe by truck in reinforced cages followed by six months in quarantine in North Devon.

They couldn't ask for a more beautiful new home - a two-acre patch on the Escot Estate, with half-a-dozen big fish ponds to choose from, countless trees, a small river, a nice lot of mud all fenced in with specially sunken fence to stop them burrowing out.

'It was an expensive process, but you just need to see them to see it was worth it,' says John-Michael.

If only. Because, nearly six hours into my stake-out, they're still playing hide and seek.

It doesn't help that, on top of all their other amazing talents, beavers have ears and nostrils that close under water to keep out water and, irritatingly - particularly if you're waiting in the rain to spot them - can stay submerged for 15 minutes at a time.

Oblivious, it seems, to the ongoing debate about their future. Because despite lobbying by conservationists anxious to see the return of an indigenous species, objections from nervous landowners and the caution of Britain's environmental people mean this pair are unlikely to be leaving their enclosure in a hurry.

'It's daft, because they have much less impact than people think,' says John-Michael. 'They're only felling stuff that the Environmental Agency or private landowners spend millions every year coppicing back.'

He and fellow conservationists insist that beavers have a positive impact. By building a dam and flooding a river they help promote insect and bird life, furnish fish with pools in which to spawn and drag branches into water that create habitats for invertebrates.





Out and about: The beavers spend their days working on their dam or extending their lodge





While things have reached a stalemate in England and Wales, they have progressed farther north.

A few weeks ago, after several false starts, the Scottish executive gave the go-ahead for a pilot scheme in which 15 to 20 beavers will be released in Knapdale Forest, Mid Argyll, early next spring.

The animals will be caught from wild stocks in Norway later this year and then quarantined for six months, before being be radio-tagged and monitored for three years.

If successful, the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland - who are running the scheme - will look at other sites to reintroduce them.

Which, theoretically, could eventually have a good knock-on effect for this pair, who could be relocated into the wild.

Meanwhile, back by their lodge, it happened! Just as I'm beginning to curse him, Mr Beaver pops out from nowhere, whiskers twitching, beady eyes gleaming, crams a mouthful of grass in his mouth and waddles about busily before a perfect dive into the chocolate-brown water.

Despite the long wait, it was all worth it just to see him gliding about happily sporting a big toothy grin, before he jack-knifes down again with barely a bubble. And so the wait starts again for another sight of one of our most extraordinary and, sadly, rarest animals.


Viva The Beaver! After 800 years away, the British rodent is back and dam busy | Mail Online

[Woodmonkey]

*bump*

[Snowden]

Aren't they cute? This is a better story -- more pictures and information. Thanks for merging them, Katie.

[Woodmonkey]

You're welcome.