There is a passage in J.B. Mackinnon’s “The Once and Future World” that I often remember. It’s the part about 17th century conviction that no species could be made extinct by the work of man because the number of species on earth was the prerogative of God alone. He wouldn’t allow it to happen and he was in charge. The part that impressed me most was the speed at which public opinion seamlessly transitioned from “It could never happen that human harvesting of any God’s work could make it extinct” to the defensive self-justification of “We don’t think that species ever existed here anyway,”
I swear, that’s what he wrote, and I was stunned and read it over and over. Even now it pops into my mind when I think about Beavers in California or Panthers in Florida or Climate Change. Even during the recent bruhaha in England you read comments blithely insisting that beaver weren’t native and didn’t belong in the River Otter anyway.
Well the good guys just got some ammunition.
Northumberland beaver discovery sheds light on the missing link in river management
Beavers were living on the Tyne catchment 400 years later than had been previously believed, a new discovery has revealed.
A piece of birch wood which had been gnawed by a beaver was found sticking out of the eroding bankside of the Scaup burn at Kielder Forest in Northumberland.
Now the wood has been radiocarbon dated, showing that it was chewed in the 14th Century.
Experts say this is conclusive evidence of the presence of beavers in the upper Tyne catchment in the 14th Century and is the most recent radiocarbon date for the animals in Britain.
The previous most recent radiocarbon fix for beavers was on bones at Glastonbury, which dated from between 800AD and 1000.
I had to look at a map to remind myself that Northumberland is way at the tippy-tippy top of England, almost in Scotland. Which means this is good news for everyone in the United Kingdom from our friends in Cornwall to our friends on the river Tay. I love that this chew was found on a scouting trip and whisked away for carbon testing.
(And lets be completely honest here, I like to imagine that the idea of carbon testing this wood had something to do with the carbon testing Chuck James presented on at the State of the Beaver Conference in Oregon, and that we published two years ago.)
He believes it adds support to calls for beavers, which create wetland habitats for other wildlife, to be reintroduced in the future.
“They are eco-engineers, who would add interest to our wildlife and could be an economic benefit in terms of tourism,” says Angus.
The later presence of beavers in Northumberland supports the idea of reintroduction, he believes.
“It would benefit the environment and help in issues like flood protection. Beavers are the missing link in river management.
Well said sir! I’m going to guess that Mr. Kielder is a friend of our friend Paul Ramsey the beaver believer whose clever wife was the keynote speaker at the State of the Beaver Conference – or at least that if they aren’t friends already, they will be soon.
Beavers change things. It’s what they do.
