EAGER BEAVERS!

IT’S A BIG year for nature’s smartest engineer, with the Wildlife Trusts set to release a record number of beavers in 2021. Around 20 of the industrious dam-building herbivores will be released across five English and Welsh counties – the largest number of releases since beavers were reintroduced to Britain in 2001, in a landmark project by Kent Wildlife Trust. One pair is already settling in at an enclosed wetland site in Devon. Other projects to come include:

The first-ever reintroduction for Wales, at the Cors Dyfi Nature Reserve near Machynlleth The first-ever reintroduction for the Isle of Wight, on the Eastern Yar river

Two couples and their kits at Willington Wetlands in Derbyshire

At least four beavers for the Idle Valley Nature Reserve in Nottinghamshire

Plus a first ever urban beaver project: plans for a pair to be introduced to a 12-hectare site in central Shrewsbury, Shropshire, in 2022.

The trusts say beavers bring a huge range of environmental benefits. They create new wetland habitats that allow other species to thrive, including otters, water voles and kingfishers. Their dams act as natural water filters which reduce pollution downstream, and they also slow down surge rates, which in turn prevents soil erosion and flooding.

They have thrived following reintroduction in 2001, with over 400 animals now thought to reside here. They became a legally protected native species in Scotland in 2019.

The Wildlife Trusts are now calling for a nationwide protection strategy from environment agency Defra, to outlaw culling and help fund future reintroductions.

Says Wildlife Trusts chief executive Craig Bennett: “Beavers are a fantastic keystone species that have a hugely important role to play in restoring nature to Britain.”