WOULD YOU WANT
BEAVERS IN YOUR BACKYARD?
Louisa Neill, LVI
Before the 1700s, the Eurasian beaver was one of the UK’s key native mammal species, although today many would find it difficult to imagine walking past a river and seeing a beaver-built dam or, better yet, its residents.
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Hunted for their fur, meat and a salicylic acid cureall called castoreum from their castor sacs, beavers disappeared from Great British woodlands and wetlands sometime in the 16th century, though nobody is quite sure exactly when. However, after 300 years, small populations of the furry rodents have begun to flourish in parts of southern England and Scotland. But it is not just the beavers who are flourishing; the degraded ecosystems they have re-inhabited have benefitted greatly under their stewardship. This effort has been carried out mostly by independent UK landowners, supported by the Beaver Trust, an ecological restoration charity. Its core programme, Mainstream, aims to make beavers a key species in the UK once again. They do this by encouraging and advising farmers and landowners on how to acquire funding grants and non-native animal keeper licences to introduce Eurasian beavers onto their land. It is natural restorative efforts like these that, if scaled up, could help to combat Britain’s biodiversity crisis.
THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN’S BEAVERS Before their extinction, beavers were a fundamental component of both ecosystems and local economies and could be found across the entirety of Britain. They thrived on wetland habitats and in ancient woodlands, helping to manage the flow of water throughout the ecosystem by building dams, and maintaining those conditions so other animals could thrive. Inhabitants of the wetlands, such as small birds and amphibians, also co-evolved with beavers, including a now extinct species of European hippopotamus.
