Beavers aren’t just a threat to salmon
Well I’m not taking Waffle for a walk along the Tay at Dunkeld. Not after the latest reports of killer beavers on the loose. According to the Sporting Lets website, a member of staff has had to throw themselves clear of one.
The animal emerged from undergrowth and, in the manner of cross beavers, thumped its tail repeatedly on the ground much like a bull preparing to charge. Which it then did. The intruder was forced to throw himself sideways to avoid the onrush of teeth and tail and by the time he had picked himself up, the beast had beetled off back to the Tay having made its point.
I suspect this will not be the last we hear of disturbed beavers rushing walkers, cyclists, dogs or children. Beavers live in and near water and there is nowhere the great British public enjoys disporting itself more than on or beside water. Beavers, it is true, are naturally timid little things, although they can grow to 40kg so you wouldn’t want to be hit, let alone bitten by one. And normally they steer clear of people unless disturbed.
But the internet is stuffed full of incidents, mainly in the US needless to say, of dogs and humans being bitten. An American woman died after being bitten by a rabid beaver. A fisherman was killed in Belarus four years ago when a beaver bit through the artery in his leg. More recently an off duty chef and his pals were confronted in Angus by a furious beaver.
In Devon, walkers have been warned to keep dogs on leads near rivers following an attack on a dog. No one knows, because SNH is still busy trying to count them, how many beavers are out there. The Tay beavers have been around for a decade, thought to be escapees from a local estate. And they are not the only ones.
To the distress of rewilders and conservationists, SNH has been trying to trap a family of beavers near the River Beauly, coincidentally in the same catchment area as the much admired Aigas Field Centre, home for a number of years to reintroduced beavers. Hitherto, the main complaint about beavers, apart from eating trees that don’t belong to them, has been that their dams impede migrating fish in spawning burns, although no one knows for absolute sure.
Considering Scotland’s salmon river boards have spent years clearing spawning burns of weirs and natural obstacles, giving beavers legal protection as of next year, is not seen as helpful. Which will take precedence? Beaver dam or migrating fish? The plight of salmon will however pale into insignificance once the first child gets bitten. Mark my words. n