Beavers in the UK - 2020 has been good for something!

I was thrilled to see this pop up in my news feed this morning. Just a month or so ago I was speaking with a local wildlife officer who informed me that - in addition to a fenced in colony of beavers - there is another colony on a local river. They don't know how the beavers got there, but have been observing it for a while.

2020 - A good year for beavers

A lot has happened in 2020, but one thing that might have been overlooked is the re-emergence of the beaver in England. A five-year government trial into the reintroduction of beavers into the wild ended, citing a long list of benefits, while new beaver homes have been set up in enclosures around the country. What's so good about the beaver - and why isn't everyone a fan?

And another Beaver news article on the same day!

Beavers build first Exmoor dam in 400 years

Ah, beavers! Mother Nature's hydro engineer - hard working, super quiet, nocturnal, no wages, master of water retention and flood management and generally gets on well even welcoming other wildlife to the environments they create.

Sounds like the ideal neighbor to me.

Lorinne Anderson wrote:Ah, beavers! Mother Nature's hydro engineer - hard working, super quiet, nocturnal, no wages, master of water retention and flood management and generally gets on well even welcoming other wildlife to the environments they create.

Sounds like the ideal neighbor to me.

Right up until the moment they decide to build a dam in a drainage culvert :)

Blocked culvert, meh, that is when a beaver Baffle is installed, problem solved.

Lorinne Anderson wrote:Blocked culvert, meh, that is when a beaver Baffle is installed, problem solved.

I actually think we need to grapple with beaver impacts a bit more intensively -- with changes to human institutions and notions of property rights.

In some cases, the solution is pinpoint easy, like a beaver baffle.  

But fundamentally, these wonderful critters slow and spread water on the landscape in stream valleys.  Most of human history has been focused on draining these same areas, converting swamps to fields and forests, and accelerating the passage of water from the mountains to the sea.

If we want beavers (and I do -- in fact, I think we need them restored to every acre of their historic range) we have got to recognize that they are going to cut down trees (that some human somewhere considers a valuable asset) and flood land (that has more economic value to humans than a beaver pond/meadow/marsh does).  We can relocate and channel this activity to "acceptable" locations when it's isolated and rare in a given watershed, but if we want the full ecosystem benefits of a healthy beaver population, we have to cede to them the lands and forests they want to flood and eat.  In fine, we've got to redefine what property ownership means.  We already acknowledge a wide variety of public easements over real property for things like roads, utilities, and streams themselves (the nature of these easements is different in every jurisdiction, but every jurisdiction has some).  In my opinion we need to recognize a "beaver easement" (or you could call it an "ecosystems services easement" if preferred) in much the same fashion.  If the beavers move in, the property owner has to tolerate them (with perhaps a few gentle protective interventions, like wire protection for especially valuable trees, say) for the lifecycle of that beaver colony.  Eventually, they'll out-chew the local food supply or their pond will silt in and marsh up and turn into the most fertile imaginable meadow, by which time that particular colony will have played out and the land owner can enjoy the benefits.  It's no different, really, than a riverfront property owner who loses land when the river moves.  Nobody cries, it's just the nature of the ownership of that parcel.  

I guess all this makes me a beaver radical!

I read an excellent book a year or so ago “What Nature Does for Britain”. It tries to quantify the value of natural assets.

One section looks at water catchments, down stream flooding and the costs of protecting downstream towns.

They concluded that the cost of improving upstream catchments rather than building flood defences was typically a hundred times cheaper, and had lots of other environmental benefits as well. They included beaver impact in their assessment, but also tree planting in upland areas and other factors.

The problem is a political one - that of directing funds to upland areas to solve down stream problem, and getting buy in from the farmers and landowners.

Ellendra Nauriel wrote:

Lorinne Anderson wrote:Ah, beavers! Mother Nature's hydro engineer - hard working, super quiet, nocturnal, no wages, master of water retention and flood management and generally gets on well even welcoming other wildlife to the environments they create.

Sounds like the ideal neighbor to me.

Right up until the moment they decide to build a dam in a drainage culvert :)

I recall some one using a small radio playing the sound of trickling water away from the culvert  to deceive the beaver about where to install his dam. It was in a documentary but the name escapes me.

Also the issue everyone complained about in town was flash floods caused by failed beaver dams. "We gotta kill all the damn beavers" Exclaims the townsman as his wife pulls on her expensive fur coat. There never was a beaver pond that swept away unless every beaver was removed from the area.

Walking the dog along the local river here, I saw signs of beaver activity this spring. First time in my life. Was keeping an eye out for a lodge but never could spy one.  Then I read the thread about the beaver that lodge in the banks, I said oh that makes sense.  I wonder if it's true that genetics play a role in lodge/dam construction as stated, our if it is just a function of population density?

I have recently been learning about the differences between the Eurasian beaver (here in the uk) and those you have in the USA. The Eurasian beavers have a tendency towards more modest dams and lodges, and sometimes nest without an obvious dam. I don't think we are anticipating the enormous dams and huge quantities of water that you get over there.

Were North American beavers introduced to the British Isles a couple of centuries ago, for their fur? And made a nuisance of themselves, since they are more destructive? Memory is vague, but I recall reading something along those lines.

Not as far as I am aware. The Eurasian beaver was endemic here until about 200 years ago, so they have replaced like with like. They were hunted to extinction.