Liquid engineering

A Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Special Area of Conservation, and around Dunkeld a National Scenic Area: the Tay drips with designations. Notable wildlife includes otters, three kinds of lamprey, freshwater pearl mussels and Atlantic salmon (see p58). There are beavers here too: you can see tree stumps gnawed by their ironteeth as you walk the banks. Extinct across Britain for 400 years, these large, landscaping rodents reappeared wild on the Tay at the turn of the millennium – either escaping or illegally released from nearby enclosures – and the Scottish government, after a brief period of trying to catch them, has now ruled they can stay and made them a protected species.