Dam good opportunity awaits 28 eager beavers
TRAPPERS are planning a major operation to capture wild beavers roaming the countryside.
They hope to lure the animals using hi-tech trail cameras and cages baited with fruit before releasing them on the other side of the country.
The move is part of a project, backed by the Scottish Government, to reintroduce beavers into the forests of Knapdale, Argyll.
Although 16 beavers were flown in from Norway for the multi-million pound trial eight years ago, the population in Argyll has halved.
But, bizarrely, beaver numbers are booming along the Tay, where dozens of animals – believed to have escaped from private collections or been deliberately released – have set up home. Now conserva- tionists plan to trap some of the Tay beavers and send them to Argyll.
If the scheme is approved, traps resembling large dog kennels could be laid as early as this autumn. It is
PLANS for a mass cull of stoats which could devastate Orkney’s wildlife have been launched.
Stoat numbers have spiralled since they were first spotted six years ago, threatening the unique Orkney vole and ground-nesting birds such as Arctic terns.
The Orkney Native Wildlife Project, set up by Scottish Natural Heritage and RSPB Scotland, won £65,000 of Lottery cash last month to help start a trapping trial. hoped that around 28 beavers will be trapped and moved over three years after a short period of quarantine at Edinburgh Zoo.
Susan Davies, director of conservation at the Scottish Wildlife Trust, said: ‘Beavers should be able to naturally recolonise Scotland, from both Knapdale and Tayside, but they won’t naturally recolonise in Argyll unless we go in and boost the population.
‘If there is a pair of beavers already bonded, we will try to release them at the same site. Then it’s up to the beavers as a wild animal to decide where they want to settle.’
Beavers – which were hunted to extinction in Scotland 400 years ago – are one of the largest rodents in the world, weighing up to 60lb.
They can grow to more than 3ft long and are able to stay under water for up to 15 minutes.