The Beaver Trust
After working on the first release of beavers to London in Enfield, I joined the Wildlife Trusts as ‘Beaver Reintroduction Manager’ in 2024. It has been a really exciting time to be involved with the reintroduction of this species as their population is growing and beavers are making a successful come back in England.
Of the 39 Expressions of Interest s for wild beaver releases 20 came from Wildlife Trusts, and most of projects that have been given the go ahead are also the Wildlife Trusts.
Beavers are a bit like us. When they get to certain age they will leave home and become independent, living on their own for a while and then trying to find a mate. When they have found the right beaver the new couple will set off to find a home. This is quite tricky as any territory that has already been taken is fiercely defended and the young couple has to be careful not to upset the already existing homesteads. Beavers will move along watercourses and rarely venture more than 10 meters away from a stream as they are much faster in water than on land with their big broad tails. However at this moment in time, given that we are at the beginning of our beaver reintroductions, it is a golden age to be a young beaver on the move.
David Parkyn
Why you may ask do we need to reintroduce beavers? It is because they were so useful to humans, their fur, the castoreum glands and even their meat that they were hunted to extinction. In England, Scotland and Wales about 400 years ago, but even in Europe numbers were dwindling from the middle ages onwards. The almost insatiable appetite for beaver furs was the main driver for trade with North America and the killing of millions of beavers and also otters had a devastating effect on ecosystems in the US and Canada.
Today successful conservation programmes and reintroductions have created healthy populations in Europe with around 1.6 million beavers and North America with 10-15 million animals. One of the reasons for their success is that they are strict herbivores, diurnal (active dusk, night and dawn), good parents and do not pose a threat to people, pets or livestock.
The wetlands beavers create are all about food and protection and once they have found the right place there is no time to waste. First a lodge, a huge pile of wood with a dry elevated living area in the middle, is built. The entrance to the lodge is hidden under water and can only be accessed by diving in through the water.
The next task is to organise their surroundings and as so called ‘ecosystem engineers’ they will create waterways and small ponds by building dams of varying size and lengths. Beavers are incredibly hard working and will build and repair their habitat until it is just right for them. By doing so they create perfect conditions for insects, amphibians, small mammals and many other fauna and flora that lives in this kind of environment.
Through farming and human infrastructure we have lost most of our wetlands and beavers can help us to create theses valuable habitats and look after them for free. Storing water can be useful during heavy rain but also releases water slowly during droughts, which is just what we need.
As with any new inhabitant they can be in the wrong place at the wrong time and rather than storing water where it is useful build a dam near a field that is ready to be harvested. Over the last 15 years we have learned to live with beavers and Natural England have developed a so called ‘mitigation hierarchy’ that offers solutions to any problems. The Wildlife Trust also has the advantage of running many enclosures and a population of free living beavers on the River Otter in Devon for many years.
We think beavers are a win:win for all of us!
