The battle of the River Tay
There are now 600 beavers in the Tay catchment – great if you are a conservationist, not so fine if you’re a farmer with ruined crops. Cal Flyn reports on a proper riverside rammy
When the beaver reintroduction project got the go ahead at Knapdale in Argyll in 2009 after years of campaigning and careful planning, few realised that a renegade band of their brethren had already been beavering away on the riverbanks in Tayside for several years. A small population of the rodents, which were hunted to extinction in Scotland in the 16th century, either escaped from captivity or were illegally released sometime in the early 2000s, and their numbers have boomed ever since. In contrast to the official Knapdale site, which was carefully chosen to ensure the beaver population is easy to contain, the Tayside beavers have been able to spread quickly along the banks of the Tay and its tributaries, and have been causing chaos ever since.
In the five years up to 2017, the Tayside beaver population rose steeply from 150 to 430. Hailed by some as an exciting example of self-directed rewilding in action – and by others as a costly and unlawful experiment – they may now number as many as 600.
Among those less than delighted to find themselves sharing their land with uninvited beavers is Adrian Ivory, a farmer in Meigle, Perthshire. ‘We’ve had them on our land for ten years or more, but the extent of the problem has increased significantly during the last five,’ he said. ‘They dam up the burns, the water backs up, the field drains are under the level of the water, so they don’t work, and our crops are killed and rot in the field. Two years ago I lost eight acres of grain. That’s a lot of food.’
“They dam up the burns so the water backs up and our crops rot in the field
Ivory has a license to manage the beavers’ dams, but estimates that it costs at least £4,000 a year to do so. Recent efforts involve fencing off burns and installing ‘beaver gates’ into the smaller streams to prevent their access and unmistakeable landworks. ‘Where a dam is, it looks like a war zone,’ he said. ‘It’s just loads of chewed off branches and twigs, mud, stones. Anything they can build with. Trees are felled, and their stumps show that classic conical shape.’
The worst affected areas are in lowland regions where intensive agriculture takes place in fields that run right up to the riverbanks, where fields must be continually drained in order to maintain them as viable cropland. When river flow is disturbed or redirected by beaver dams, large areas can become waterlogged quickly. Upstream, where riverside land is seminatural woodland, land managers have had far fewer issues.
Ben Ross, the beaver project manager at Scottish Natural Heritage, said that the public body was working hard to mitigate the problems. ‘Beavers benefit nature, creating habitats such as ponds and wetlands where other species thrive, as well as alleviating flooding and improving water quality,’ said Ross. ‘But sometimes beavers can flood farmland and roads, and we need to help land owners manage them. We have worked with a range of partners, including the Scottish Government, farming and conservation bodies, to set up a scheme to provide free, expert advice and practical support to anyone whose land is affected by beavers.’
Feelings have certainly been running high, and some in the region have taken matters into their own hands. On 1 May 2019, beavers became protected under a new law that bans the culling of the rodents or damage to their lodges without special licence. However, the Scottish investigative outlet The Ferret identified a spike in beaver killings in the run up to the May deadline, including one case that saw a dead animal wash up on the banks of the Tummel, shot through the chest, and another case where a family holidaying in Tayport, Fife, watched horrified as a critically injured beaver struggled against the current before being washed out to sea.
A special investigations officer at the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA) – who works undercover and therefore cannot be named – tells me that though they welcomed the new legislation, the targeting of beavers shows no sign of stopping. ‘Since the implementation of the new law, we have received intelligence that suggests unlicensed killing is still taking place,’ they warned.
Last year, in the eight months after the protections came into effect, four beavers were found dead, and a fifth injured. (One animal, found in Broughty Ferry in December, was shot and then skinned, according to local reports.) So far this year, a further two have been killed. The SSPCA investigator said they would work with Scottish Natural Heritage to conduct post-mortems, and with Police Scotland where necessary. ‘If anyone has any evidence of the illegal culling of beavers, we would urge them to contact our confidential animal helpline on 03000 999 999,’ they added.
For the time being, efforts are underway to move some of these irrepressible animals out of the problem area. Some were caught and transported to the official beaver site in Knapdale, where their reintroduction has been considered a great success, while others have been sent south to colonise new sites in Devon and Yorkshire, where it is hoped that they will benefit the local community by acting as a natural flood-prevention measure, and by increasing biodiversity.
At the time of writing, a breeding pair and up to four kits were also due to be re-homed into a 27-acre fenced enclosure in Cumbria. In all, up to 50 of the troublesome Tayside beavers are expected to be re-homed elsewhere in Britain as part of rewilding efforts.
“Since the new law we have intelligence that unlicensed beaver killing is still taking place
For those of us who don’t have to cope with their more destructive tendencies, catching a glimpse of a Scottish beaver in the wild is an exciting prospect – and there are a number of places around the country where they might be seen.
The official beaver trial site in Knapdale, seven miles west of Lochgilphead, offers a ‘beaver detective trail’ around one of the lochs where the activities of its resident beaver family are most visible. It’s a three-mile walk which takes two hours to complete and which is accessed from the Barnluasgan car park. Beavers are most active at night, so head there at dusk or dawn for the best chance of seeing them out and about.
In Perthshire, there are regular ‘beaver watch’ evening events at the Loch of the Lowes nature reserve, run by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, while local firm Perthshire Wildlife offers beaver safaris by kayak between April and October, departing from Blairgowrie. As with all activities this year, activities may not be running as expected due to coronavirus containment measures, so check before departing.
Still, for some riverbank residents of Tayside, the excitement of beavers on their land has long faded. ‘People have got to realise that although the public see them as lovely, fluffy creatures, they do cause us significant problems,’ farmer Adrian Ivory reminds us. ‘If you had rodents in your house, you’d do something about it. It’s not that we don’t like them, but we have to protect our livelihoods and get food on your plates. And at the moment, we need all the food we can get.’