Meet the laird and lady of beaver castle
(...who don’t give a dam for their critics!) It’s a gloriously eccentric tale: Aristocrats with a passion for wildlife, an animal escape and a badly chewed gate...
PAUL and Louise Ramsay are adamant: they have never deliberately released a beaver into the wild. If pushed, however, they will admit that, over the years, some of their beavers – perhaps even a few – may have accidentally escaped. As far as they’re concerned, that can only be a good thing. The laird and lady of Bamff House make no secret of their passion: they’re mad about beavers.
Over the past two decades, they have been on an extraordinary personal crusade to help bring the rodents, which were hunted to extinction in the 16th Century, back to Scotland. They have turned the 1,300-acre estate in Perthshire that has been in the family since the 13th Century into a beaver haven.
As well as importing specimens from Bavaria and Norway, they have also rehomed them from zoos and even driven the length of Britain to collect some in the back of a van. On their land, the animals built dams and eventually bred baby beavers – known as kits.
Over the same period, conservationists have been puzzled by reports of a growing population of beavers – now believed to number hundreds – spreading across Tayside and Perthshire. Now,
‘We didn’t let them out on purpose’
for the first time, the Ramsays have publicly admitted their role in the explosion of wild beavers. They spoke of their passion for the animals and of the price they have paid – being arrested and even shunned for their obsession.
Mrs Ramsay, 64, said: ‘Beavers do astounding things for wildlife. They strip out pollutants, they mitigate flooding, they mitigate droughts.
‘We didn’t purposefully let them out, definitely not. But I think later it became difficult to keep them enclosed because the numbers were going up. We also had three very wet winters, so there will have been escapes.’
But they insist there were wellestablished colonies of beavers roaming Tayside – perhaps escaped from wildlife parks and private collections – long before their animals arrived.
The Ramsays have a legitimate claim to be guardians of their local environment – the family have lived at Bamff for 800 years. The current occupants arrived in 1986, when Mr Ramsay, now 71, inherited it from his uncle.
He holds an MSc in environmental conservation and had a beaver epiphany in 1996, after attending a lecture about the reintroduction of wild animals.
He said: ‘I was just amazed. I knew about the wolf, the lynx and bears and so on, but it hadn’t clicked with me about beavers. So I was tremendously excited and asked: ‘Why aren’t we going to bring this animal back immediately?’
In fact, conservation bodies were already considering reintroducing beaver. But when their plans stalled – in the face of opposition by farmers and landowners – Mr Ramsay resolved to set up a ‘private enterprise’ on his own land.
Releasing non-native species, including beaver, into the wild without a licence breaches Section 14 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act and carries a maximum penalty of an unlimited fine and up to two years in prison. But the Ramsays were told they could keep beavers as long as they were confined to their own property.
Mrs Ramsay said: ‘We made an enclosure, then had netting and electric wire added as necessary. It was beaver-proof, initially.’
In March 2002, the Ramsays drove a hired van to a wildlife park in Kent, where two beavers flown to Britain as a gift from the Norwegian government had been set aside for them. They acquired more, some from a German conservationist.
Some died, but by 2008 two families of
Bavarian beavers were breeding on their estate.
The Ramsays are unclear how many may have escaped. Mrs Ramsay said: ‘It’s all a bit speculative. I think they did breed quite well, it’s been rather amazing.’
The beavers are not without their critics. In 2007, an escaped female caused £1,000 worth of damage after gnawing a neighbour’s fruit trees.
In March 2011, Mr Ramsay was arrested. He said: ‘A beaver had gnawed somebody’s gatepost. We had this interrogation in the police station and eventually I thought, well that’s fine, now we’ll all get up and say thank you. And he said, “Now I’m going to arrest you”.
‘My lawyer said, “Write to the procurator fiscal and say why a beaver found so close to your property didn’t necessarily come from there.”
‘The reason was a perfectly simple one. When beavers are dispersing through an empty landscape, they tend to cherry-pick. They don’t just stop outside their parents’ place. The prosecutors decided not to proceed.’
There have been other repercussions. Mrs Ramsay said: ‘If you do something controversial, you can’t expect not to make enemies. I’ve found it upsetting, actually.
‘Paul has been approached by what used to be a friendly acquaintance, with, “You should be in prison,” as his cheery greeting.
‘A year ago, I went to the funeral of a friend’s husband and a farmer started tackling me on the subject.
‘You get dropped off a lot of lists for parties and that kind of thing.’
In 2009, an official beaver trial began when Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) flew in a small number of beavers from Norway and released them in Knapdale Forest in Argyll – a 137-mile drive west of Bamff.
After spending millions on teams of scientists, the project was wound up in 2014. In November last year, the Scottish Government finally decided to recognise the Eurasian beaver as a native species.
‘It’s been fantastic, just so exciting’, said Mrs Ramsay. ‘We are certainly not in any way attempting to keep our beavers enclosed now.
‘We decided to expand our tourism on the back of the beavers. It’s just made this estate so beautiful.’
But there is still a possibility of further conflict An SNH spokesman said: ‘The reintroduction of a species into the countryside can have benefits. Unfortunately, there are examples from Scotland and across the world of where reintroductions, despite the best of intentions, have created problems which have been costly to address.
‘That is why Scotland has quite tough but balanced legislation, which governs introductions and makes it illegal to reintroduce a former native species into the wild without a licence.’ Local fisherman Robert Kelly, 57, said: ‘I don’t have any problem with the beavers, but he [Mr Ramsay] has not shown any consideration. Floodbanks in the River Isla have collapsed.
‘The Ramsays are blinkered, they have a different agenda. They think they are doing everyone a favour.’
But for Mrs Ramsay, there is no doubt that, despite the difficulties, their efforts have been worthwhile.
She said: ‘We’re not unsympathetic that beavers can be quite challenging in a lot of contexts.
‘On the other hand, you get people who are very thrilled and very impressed.
‘The reintroduction of the beaver is a real moment in history.’