I had no idea beavers were extinct in the UK. I hope they thrive.
We have a family of beavers on some property in the US. It is fascinating to watch their effect on the landscape over time. Ours cycle between an upstream and downstream habitat every few years. They allow one to regrow while they harvest the other. The area they manage is a favorite spot for many other animals including deer, various birds, coyotes, foxes, etc.
I so don't know how to feel about beavers. I live in a country where beavers are quite strictly protected, but volves and bears are regularly hunted "to protect the people from them". This causes an imbalance: beavers have zero natural enemies, are not hunted and are capable of changing the countryside. I find myself sympathetic to the people who lose portions of their lands, I am sad for the many trees felled near a lake by my home, I understand why some people are frustrated.
In general, we messed up the ecosystem - the most complex system on this planet and we insist on messing it further by one-sided protection of the "cute" speciess.
Don't get me wrong, I admire beavers: hard workers, creative, imaginative, resilient, with strong families. All in all, a role model for humanity.
I just wish we would look at the big system and strive to fix that as a whole.
The same has happened in the United Kingdom wrt deer and predators including wolves (which are locally extinct) -- a blunt instrument because we can think of no other way of protecting livestock. The result is we "have to" regularly cull thousands of animals instead of letting an ecosystem manage itself.
What would that entail? The whole of the UK has been a human managed ecosystem for centuries. Deforestation was completed about 400 years ago and the larges stand of contiguous trees is under 300 sq. mi. So many of the species that would have made up the old ecosystem are gone.
Here in Germany wolves return to many parts of the country. And there is lots of resistance. There are regular sob-stories how wolves hunted poor cuddly niece lambs and how their owners are now scarred for life and will quit their jobs.
There is financial compensation and also guidance on how to build secure fences, but the big bad wolv is scary...
Amusing you disparage a scientifically mandated effort to incrementally pull back from an environmental precipice as "protection of the 'cute' species".
It would be a start, though, if we reintroduced keystone species, allowed less problematic predators free reign, and adopted a policy of generally consigning river floodplains to nature as much as possible rather than making rivers into sewers or canals. Trying to live inches from a flowing river is an anachronism from an earlier era when we cared about very different things.
That solution seems to work best through a colonial, capitalist lens. Rather than TINA (Thatcher's "there is no alternative"), consider TIA (Yoda's "there is... another")?
What's the tradeoff tho? People usually are mad because those animals threaten part of their income, not because they cause harm to the environment. It's not about beavers or wolves or beavers or another ugly animal. Is usually about beaver or corn, or soy or whatever they're planting.
The beavers were released yesterday in the UK: "the National Trust has legally released the first two pairs of Eurasian beavers to live in the wild in Purbeck, Dorset. "
"Natural England has developed a detailed licencing regime and application process to make sure that stakeholders are engaged and landowners are supported."
I don't understand what a stakeholder is in this context. Also, why are licenses involved? What does this even mean?
The stakeholders in this matter are primarily third-sector organizations in support of beaver reintroduction, of which the many regional Wildlife Trusts are most prominent, and farmers, who are generally but not entirely against reintroduction.
The licences are necessary because with such a sensitive issue, it must be ensured that only responsible and well-resourced organizations can release beavers into the wild. Otherwise, beavers may be introduced into areas that are unsuitable for them, or into areas where they will cause disproportionate damage to farming operations, and either eventuality would harm the perception of beavers. If that happened, the beavers might become so unpopular that it becomes politically impossible to continue with the reintroduction, so it's in everyone's best interests to be careful. Beavers are wonderful animals and can be very beneficial to their local environment, but you can't just dump them on a housing estate or something and expect good results.
I don't know what the exact criteria is, but the winding, damp brooks of the area where I live have been among the successful trial areas for beaver reintroduction. An abundance of willow trees is one factor that makes for an ideal beaver environment, for instance.
A license is needed to be a beaver in England. Beavers not carrying license cards will be considered illegal aliens and returned to their country of citizenship.
On several UK rivers, most notably the River Wye on the Welsh/English border, there exists a powerful river trust that has raised millions to remove 'barriers to salmon migration'. They took down and bypassed weirs on tributaries. They pulled out dead trees.
Then other bodies started felling trees into their river to create habitat for juvenile fish.
As an angler you might forgive me for thinking one of those bodies was in the wrong. Either way their conservation efforts have not mitigated the collapsing stocks of salmon over the two decades of their management.
I for one am happy for the beavers to have a go instead
Yes they did. They would deforest the banks, fence it off and clear the stream. Then they tried to convince other trusts to do the same. Now they are planting trees etc.
Depending on the tree and local conditions it can take tens or hundreds of years for them to decay. That’s why old growth forests take so long to restore, they require several generations of dead trees in different states of decay. This allows everything to fungi and insects get established.
They definitely shouldn’t have removed dead trees. Worst case scenario if they were ugly and someone politically powerful wanted them gone they should have been broken up or ground into large mulch.
I was once at a conservation event with the Wye and Usk foundation and the Wild trout Trust. WUF presented first on removing obstructions, then WTT presented on large woody debris! WUF, however, was rich and could push out other people and groups and push their vision. Another group were working on a novel way to stock salmon (semi natural rearing, pioneered successfuly on the Tyne) and WUF campaigned successfully to have it banned! It was a lesson to me as a young man that not all conservation groups were net good. The rod salmon catch on the Wye was 188 last year, down from 6,000 in the 1960s.
This was a my favorite book last year. Friend and I went on a hike across Isle Royale and while we skipped the area that is inhabited by beavers they had the book at the gift shop and it sounded pretty interesting.
REALLY good book and made me think very differently about beavers. Highly recommend it!
Edit: The section of the book dedicated to European beavers is much smaller than the American counterpart, in case that matters. I do think the coverage was good on both sides though.
Another interesting (free!) book is Utah State's Riverscapes Restoration Design Manual [1], which is about "Process-Based Restoration" of streams. Unlike the more common "form-based" restoration, PBR provides materials in the form of hand-built structures of natural materials, especially large pieces of wood.
Actually, I'd really recommend first just looking at all the pictures in the "pocket guide" version of the book. [2]
My brother had some beavers move back into the stream near his house. I’m sure he’d happily ship them over to the UK. Knowing they’ll be more next year means he’d probably give you an annual subscription.
He doesn’t really hate the beavers, just doesn’t want them going after his pair tree, though he found a way to defend it. They’re fascinating animals.
We have some beavers that dam up parts of our property every few years which stops water from flowing to certain areas we need water in. We just throw smoke in them to make sure they abandon it and then stick some Tannerite in their dams and blow em up. Honestly, it's a pretty fun way to deal with it.
Readit News
We have a family of beavers on some property in the US. It is fascinating to watch their effect on the landscape over time. Ours cycle between an upstream and downstream habitat every few years. They allow one to regrow while they harvest the other. The area they manage is a favorite spot for many other animals including deer, various birds, coyotes, foxes, etc.
In general, we messed up the ecosystem - the most complex system on this planet and we insist on messing it further by one-sided protection of the "cute" speciess.
Don't get me wrong, I admire beavers: hard workers, creative, imaginative, resilient, with strong families. All in all, a role model for humanity.
I just wish we would look at the big system and strive to fix that as a whole.
What would that entail? The whole of the UK has been a human managed ecosystem for centuries. Deforestation was completed about 400 years ago and the larges stand of contiguous trees is under 300 sq. mi. So many of the species that would have made up the old ecosystem are gone.
[0] https://maryroach.net/fuzz.html
This takes time and you can't score quick rewards. That's why it doesn't look good on an agenda.
The only long term fix is to move all humans off earth to space/mars/moon/elsewhere, and keep the whole of earth for nature and observation only.
Everything else won't work.
The question is do we all collectively care about the environment enough to all lose our home planet? I suspect no.
https://beavertrust.org/historic-first-official-wild-beaver-... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwygxvzpkevo
I don't understand what a stakeholder is in this context. Also, why are licenses involved? What does this even mean?
The licences are necessary because with such a sensitive issue, it must be ensured that only responsible and well-resourced organizations can release beavers into the wild. Otherwise, beavers may be introduced into areas that are unsuitable for them, or into areas where they will cause disproportionate damage to farming operations, and either eventuality would harm the perception of beavers. If that happened, the beavers might become so unpopular that it becomes politically impossible to continue with the reintroduction, so it's in everyone's best interests to be careful. Beavers are wonderful animals and can be very beneficial to their local environment, but you can't just dump them on a housing estate or something and expect good results.
I don't know what the exact criteria is, but the winding, damp brooks of the area where I live have been among the successful trial areas for beaver reintroduction. An abundance of willow trees is one factor that makes for an ideal beaver environment, for instance.
How do you prevent them from spreading to these locations once they are reintroduced?
It's the UK.
(Sorry, had to.)
Then other bodies started felling trees into their river to create habitat for juvenile fish.
As an angler you might forgive me for thinking one of those bodies was in the wrong. Either way their conservation efforts have not mitigated the collapsing stocks of salmon over the two decades of their management.
I for one am happy for the beavers to have a go instead
They definitely shouldn’t have removed dead trees. Worst case scenario if they were ugly and someone politically powerful wanted them gone they should have been broken up or ground into large mulch.
REALLY good book and made me think very differently about beavers. Highly recommend it!
Edit: The section of the book dedicated to European beavers is much smaller than the American counterpart, in case that matters. I do think the coverage was good on both sides though.
Actually, I'd really recommend first just looking at all the pictures in the "pocket guide" version of the book. [2]
[1] http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.19590.63049/2
[2] http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.28222.13123/1
He doesn’t really hate the beavers, just doesn’t want them going after his pair tree, though he found a way to defend it. They’re fascinating animals.
We have some beavers that dam up parts of our property every few years which stops water from flowing to certain areas we need water in. We just throw smoke in them to make sure they abandon it and then stick some Tannerite in their dams and blow em up. Honestly, it's a pretty fun way to deal with it.
Also worth a watch