Wales is about to see the return of a native, last seen in the Principality some four centuries ago. Next year a small group of Europe’s largest rodent are to be released in the spectacular scenery of the Rheidol Valley, 10 miles upstream from Aberystwyth . . .
At first glance the idea of returning these attractive animals, with their blunt, friendly, faces seems overwhelming. After all, they have an exemplary family structure (adults pair for life and offspring stay alongside younger siblings until they leave to set up their own lodges at two or three). There are up to four babies in a litter and these are born with eyes open and covered with fur. Within a week they will be exploring local tunnels, but they won’t venture into open water until they are two months old. They are also entirely vegetarian, feeding in summer on grass and herbs and in winter on the bark of small trees.
They are also great landscape gardeners, carefully moulding their environment to suit their needs – sometimes on a scale which would shame Capability Brown. Their prime goal is to keep the entrances to their homes submerged so, on fast-flowing rivers, they build dams to make water levels more reliable and even maintain sluice gates, adding and taking away material as required.
One might have thought this would make them conspicuous, but far from it: they remain highly secretive and totally nocturnal. If alarmed they slip quickly into the water – apart, that is, from a slap of their tail on the surface to warn relatives. As Europe’s largest rodent by far (a male’s body can measure a metre, with another 40cms of broad, flat, fleshy tail), you could be forgiven for thinking they would have few enemies.
Unfortunately not so: just like mink, seals and otters, they have a luxurious waterproof fur, demand for which probably peaked in the 16C when a beaverskin hat was de rigeur for every well-dressed Elizabethan gentleman. In addition they produce a valuable musk which was used medicinally and in perfumes (essential in an age when even monarchs bathed just once a year). This put them in high demand and as a result, by the 18C they were absent not only from Britain but from most of Europe. Relatively healthy populations clung on in the east and Scandinavia, however, boosted by pockets on the Rhone and Elbe. Thanks to protection and reintroduction schemes in Latvia and Norway, there are now thought to be around 430,000, but it is still sufficiently rare for the European Commission to require member states to consider reintroduction, along with bear, wolf and lynx. This is the real drive behind the present scheme: in a crowded island, the beaver is the only realistic candidate and studies suggest it could benefit the environment and help tourism too.
But not everyone agrees. While the demand for fur may have dwindled, farmers and foresters have serious reservations. The former fear bank erosion and the latter are concerned by the thought of an animal capable of felling a one metre-thick tree. Proponents dismiss the latters’ fears, claiming all lumberjacking occurs close to the water and that the targets are usually commercially unimportant small scrub species such as willow, birch and alder (conifers are ignored).
The most implacable opposition, however, comes from anglers who fear damming could restrict the recovery of dwindling salmon stocks by obstructing their movements between the sea and upland spawning beds. There are also worries they could threaten the fish’s food supplies. Salmon are particularly dependent on running-water invertebrates which could decline if rivers are slowed. Similarly some fear that if beavers clear bankside scrub this could also affect insect levels by depriving them of food and shelter.
Conservationists, however, point out that their reintroduction to Latvia half a century ago which today has annual financial benefits to forestry estimated at $1 – 2 billion, including natural fire breaks, clean water and stabilised water tables.
Far from harming salmon, their backers say pools and dams boost these by increasing aquatic insects which thrive on the decaying vegetation. In addition they act as silt traps and water is aerated as it pours over the top, both of which benefit fish stocks and leading to increases in other creatures like kingfishers, water voles and otters.
One problem, according to Anderson, is that most people confuse the native beaver with its Canadian cousin. It is the latter which fells huge trees and constructs vast dams to fortify its island lodges. In contrast ours tries to remain inconspicuous by choosing existing pools and it prefers to live in burrows rather than huge piles of fallen timber. Where dams are built, these are generally small and easily jumped by a spawning salmon (after all, fish and beavers happily co-existed on British rivers for thousands of years until man exterminated the latter).
