Exile instead of execution for Scottish beavers sent to England

Holyrood compromise with conservationists spares rodents from planned cull by farmers

BEAVERS are to be exported from Scotland to England amid rows with farmers about the expanding wild population on the Tay.

While the animal has been afforded protected status by the Scottish Government, farmers have been given permission to shoot a fifth of the Tay’s wild population. But conservationists have argued that the rodents are an important “keystone species” that increase biodiversity and should not be killed.

As a compromise, the Scottish government is allowing trappers to remove 112 beavers from areas near farms and move them to projects in England.

Wildlife trusts and country estate owners in England are clamouring for the animals, which create biodiverse pools, improve fish stocks and reduce flooding downriver.

Estates and nature reserves in Sussex, Derbyshire, Devon and the Forest of Dean are among those that will receive the creatures.

Stanley Johnson, the Prime Minister’s father, will soon receive beavers on his Exmoor estate as a present from his children.

Farmers argue that beavers flood land and cause a mess by felling trees, but wildlife experts say this can be mitigated by moving the animals further along rivers to areas that would benefit from having some wetland.

Ben Goldsmith, who sits on the Defra board and is the brother of Lord Goldsmith, the environment minister, has called for farmers to be paid to set aside

some of their land next to rivers to allow room for nature, including beavers.

Mark Ruskell, the Scottish Greens’ environment spokesman, said “exile is better than execution”, but argued that beavers were important to Scotland’s biodiversity and should not be removed.

He added: “There are farmers and nature reserves in Scotland who would welcome beaver populations. Instead we are exporting these creatures en masse. Beavers are native to Scotland, we should be translocating them across the country so we can build a healthy population here.”

The Beaver Trust has been working with estates and nature reserves to help supply the rodents. However, the organisation argues that English conservationists should be allowed to import beavers from healthy populations in Europe – and that the Scottish beavers should stay where they are.

James Wallace, the trust’s CEO, said: “Current policy prevents beavers from being moved to the 104,000 hectares of suitable habitat identified by the Scottish Government. Because of this, beavers are being moved to England where there is a shortage of supply for the growing number of release projects. This is because the English government prevents beavers from being imported from Europe. We ask both Governments to change their policies.”

Defra i s poised to announce its National Beaver Strategy, which will likely give permission for the rodents to live freely on Britain’s rivers.

112

The number of beavers that will be trapped from the Tay in Scotland and moved to rewilding projects in England