FEATURE Conservation
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The beaver is back and this all-round good rodent is on the verge of a renaissance. Welcome back Mr and Mrs Beaver and family to Britain’s rivers and waterways.
There has been several years of delay, including a Boris Johnson promise that came to nothing. But the good news is that in February, the government approved a controlled release programme for beavers.
The news was met with near universal enthusiasm, although with some underlying caution. Dr Roisin Campbell-Palmer of the Beaver Trust called it a “landmark moment in England’s beaver story”.
The story of the reintroduction of beavers in Britain started in Scotland
THE WILD WOODS
After 400 long years beavers are making a come back
with a trial introduction of wild beavers at Knapdale Forest in Argyll in 2009. It has been careful, slow progress.
There followed years of monitoring and research co-ordinated by NatureScot. Then Scotland carefully and gradually reintroduced beavers as part of a policy called rewilding.
The River Tay catchment area now has a significant wild beaver population. The River Forth catchment area also has a growing beaver population with other areas in the pipeline for further licensed releases.
In England the National Trust started three trials re-introducing beavers under licence and enclosed from 2020 onwards. In March this year they released beavers into the wild at
38 uniteLANDWORKER Summer 2025
Purbeck Heath, Dorset for the first time. The Welsh government says it supports a managed programme to reintroduce beavers in Wales.
400 hundred years after being hunted to extinction, the beaver is truly making a comeback.
The policy move in England is partly a response to illegal releases of beavers, so-called ‘beaver bombing’. Illegal releases saw beavers pop up in areas across England including Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Kent.
Something, as they say, had to be done in England. Learning from Scotland, the outcome is licensed release with control measures.
All photos: Alamy
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