Roam free again in Wales?
to construct dams to ensure a watery habitat close by.
“If they feel endangered, they can dive down,” said Alicia.
She added that some trees grew bushier once they’d been gnawed, in turn providing a better habitat for other wildlife.
She said beaver dams filtered water and could hold back bulges of water after heavy rain, potentially reducing flash-flooding further downstream.
“Some people are worried about dams blocking migrating fish, but the research is showing in most cases the fish can jump over or [get] through them,” she said.
Although beavers tion. There may be some local benefits from beavers, but there could also be many downsides for landowners and society in general.”
NFU Cymru was also unimpressed. Hedd Pugh, the group’s rural affairs chairman, said there was evidence that beavers would damage crops and actually exacerbate flooding.
“NFU Cymru believes there needs to be an effective way of controlling the beavers in place for farmers and landowners,” he said. “This should enable the beavers and their dams to be removed where they are likely to be, or already are, causing damage.”
Back in Carmarthenshire, Drew Love-Jones has been monitoring three pairs of beavers on land owned by the Bevis Trust for nearly four years.
“They’re fenced in but they live completely wild lives,” said the farm manager. “They are free to do what they want.”
The kits they produce are handed over after two years to beaver projects elsewhere.
Drew said the beavers had created wetland habitats, attracting kingfishers, swallows, fish and amphibians.
He admitted beavers felled “the odd tree” but that, in his view, there were no negative impacts. In addition, they attracted groups of people in the summer to observe them.
The Bevis Trust, which manages wildlife on its 290-acre farm and on other south-west Wales farms, has also boosted red kite numbers by incubating eggs and installing feeding stations. Four years ago it released around 90 water voles, a species whose numbers have declined dramatically due to habitat-loss and the presence of non-native American mink.
The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales said Llanelli hosted one of the region’s few remaining water vole populations, and that it had used these mammals to generate a new population at its nature reserve at Ffrwd Farm Mire, Pembrey.
“We continue to monitor the health of the population on the site and they are doing really well,” said Trust conservation manager Dr Lizzie Wilberforce.
The Trust is also helping to conserve native red squirrels in mid Wales, which are holding out against the larger grey squirrels.
“Red squirrels would naturally inhabit all our broadleaf woodland, but they cannot compete against grey squirrels in that environment,” added Lizzie. “We haven’t been involved in any reintroductions of red squirrels in this area; however, without intervention we believe they would likely have gone extinct in relatively few years.”
NRW said a licence would be required to release beavers and lynx into the wild. A spokesman said there was no legal requirement for a public consultation, but that it would do so given the level of public interest in such proposals.
He added that NRW would monitor these species, should they ever be reintroduced, as part of any licence.
Working out which animals and plant life are doing well or declining in Wales requires regular assessments. NRW used to carry out annual state of the environment reports and now uses a different format which considers risks and threats to the long-term environment as set out by the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act.
Another new law, the Environment (Wales) Act, has introduced a strengthened biodiversity duty and guidance is being issued to various agencies.
A Welsh Government spokesman said: “This guidance and the Act itself does not specifically cover the reintroduction of species, but will provide an important set of principles to consider. The contribution to reversing biodiversity loss, building resilient ecosystems as well as the social, economic and wider environmental risks and benefits would need to be considered carefully.”
Weighing up the pros and cons of reintroducing species, protecting existing habitats and ensuring farmers can grow enough food (and, in an ideal world, do so without relying in part on subsidies) will be debated long into the future.
Asked if we should give species a fresh chance to reclaim long-lost habitats, Alicia, of the Welsh Beaver Project, said: “I think so, especially animals which we caused to decline.
“I think there is a moral duty to at least look at the possibility of reintroducing them – to at least try.”