AN ‘ARK’ FOR BRITISH NATURE

Derek Gow, author of Bringing Back the Beaver, was one of the first people in the UK to breed beavers in captivity, with the aim of eventually releasing them. In doing so, he was actively following in the footsteps of another writer and conservationist – Gerald Durrell. In Durrell’s 1976 book The Stationary Ark, he urged the creation of small, specialised zoos dedicated to breeding ‘low-ebb species’ that were vulnerable in the wild. Gow answered the call. After consulting with the famed conservationist Roy Dennis, Gow began breeding beavers on his farm in 1995, just in case a nation-wide reintroduction programme ever materialised. Today, he breeds black storks (which have avoided Britain’s depleted landscape since the Middle Ages, but have recently been seen at Knepp Estate in Horsham), thousands of water voles (the population of which has fallen by 97 per cent in this century) and wildcats (once widespread throughout Britain’s forests). ‘Replacing all of these species is going to be an industrial effort,’ he says. ‘This is no longer about tweedy naturalists or landowners; it’s about everyone.’