Category: Beavers and Scotland

BEAVERS IN MEMORIAM

You may remember that back in May the Scottish government reported that some 87 wild beavers were killed by permit in that country, thought to be 2o percent of the total number of free beavers in the land. The Scottish wild beaver group is doing an online memorial for them and there are entries from artists and poets around the world.

They are up to 45 now.

In Memoriam

Scottish Natural Heritage recently confirmed that 87 beavers, roughly one fifth of Scotland’s entire population, were killed under licence in 2019 despite being a protected species. At least ten of the animals were less than a year old.

Submit Your Beaver Artwork

Help us commemorate the 87 beavers killed under licence & persuade the Scottish Government to use killing only as a last resort. Get “beavering away” and send a photo of your artwork (in any medium) to 87beavers@protonmail.com by 31 July 2020 & we’ll get in touch with info about what to do next.

The 87 beaver artworks will be displayed online and in spaces around Scotland.

I thought I’d share some of their awesome collection so far. But if you feel so inclined you should submit your work too. I’m sure they’d like submissions from the Americas.

As an illustrator specialising in British wildlife, I believe all creatures, including the beaver, play an important role in shaping our world. We should be working with these animals, not against them!

I am an artist working in the North East of England. Inspired by the natural world and the green spaces near where I live, my art is about celebrating and connecting with the landscape, its mythologies and its wildlife. As a member of several environmental campaign groups, I feel that a vital way of helping to preserve that natural world is to encourage people to engage with it.

And of course, my absolute favorite by Isla Ritchie aged 9.

Word to the wise, take it from someone who’s been there, the adult submissions are lovely but, if you don’t want to be doing this again next May get about 500 more drawings from Isla’s friends around the country. Make sure that every county has children submitting beaver artwork. Down to the three year olds that look like chickens or fleas with tail blobs. Get the project Nature watch or the news to make sure everyone sees it. And, heck while you’re at it make the submissions available for sale as tea towels to raise money for the education campaign.
Chris Jones poem and my video are number 41. But go check out the others for a very nice start to the weekend.

BEAVER SCATTER PLOT

heidi08 beavers and otters, Beavers and saltwater, Beavers and Scotland March 21, 2019

I generally did poorly at algebra and dreaded math as the bane of all existence. I avoided or dropped such classes with alarming regularity, and when a professor announced that I could never succeed in her course without at least algebra II I admit I burst into tears. But somehow I eventually found my way to a champion statistics instructor who wanted students to be able to do all calculations by hand and I instead of faiiing . I strangely excelled. Unlike every other class I had ever been in for my entire life I did every scrap of homework and even did some of it twice. I got every answer correct on every final and went on to became the friendly research assistant of the teacher. When I graduated I even received an award. Statistics just made sense to me.

Add this to the mysterious fact that when Jon, who all his life had excelled at math and science, took stats in college he received his lowest grade ever. Go figure, Math and statistics: I honestly think the fields tap into different parts of the brain. They are as different as water-skiing and carpentry.

Which is why it’s time to talk about scatterplots.

A scatterplot consists of an X axis (the up and down axis), a Y axis (the side to side axis), and a series of dots. Each dot on the scatterplot represents one observation from a data set. Sometimes the two variables aren’t related at all, (like height and IQ), and then the scatterplot looks like an amorphous jelly fish-like blob. But sometimes they’re VERY related, so that when one goes up the other follows, like smoking and cancer, and then the scatterplot looks like almost like a straight line or an arrow pointing to obvious conclusions.

The scatterplot of learning about beavers based on your geographic location is generally consistent by region. If you are in the midwest, for example, you likely know very very little. But if you are in Washington state you know a whole bunch. There are pockets of various arrows and pockets of jellyfish. Recently certain areas of the world have started to get much, much smarter indeed and that brings us to the beaver scatterplot.

Take Scotland for instance.

Beavers to ‘spread naturally’ across Scotland after Tory bid to prevent legal protection fails

Beavers will be allowed to “spread naturally” across Scotland, the SNP’s Environment Minister has said after a Tory bid to prevent them being given legal protection was rejected.

Roseanna Cunningham dismissed as “somewhat apocalyptic” warnings that the move would cost farmers thousands of pounds and hit some of Scotland’s best salmon rivers.

She told MSPs that there would be no attempt to “formally contain them in certain areas”, although she said “pop-up populations in completely separate” parts would not be tolerated.

Now it’s good that beavers will be tolerated across the country and that granted protected species status, but a nation that has lived 400 years without beavers doesn’t exactly know what “Spreading naturally” looks like, so the odds of beaver showing up and being considered “unnatural” are fairly high. It’s already been happening for the last 10 years in fact. Add to this the fact that there are some regions that are so geographically inaccessible or so blocked off with motorways that beavers will never get back unless they’re introduced. Don’t they deserve beavers? Our beaver friends in Scotland aren’t thrilled with this pronouncement, but as I always say:

Baby steps for babies.

She told MSPs: “What we anticipate now is that beavers will simply be allowed to spread naturally…Now they are here they must be left simply to spread into a natural range.

Meanwhile, for an army of young conservationists in America, their future looks bright with beavers, that is if the famed ‘green new deal’ has anything to say about it.

National service for the environment – what an army of young conservationists could achieve

A modern volunteer army of conservationists could get to work in every country, adjusting their efforts according to the environmental needs of each setting. The first task set could be in environmental monitoring – collecting data on pollution and wildlife abundance. These surveys would provide invaluable information about the health of ecosystems and how they are changing.

Ecosystems could then benefit from projects which reintroduce species and restore habitats. Mass tree planting could absorb atmospheric carbon and provide new habitat for returning wildlife. Wetlands – coastal ecosystems which protect against sea level rise – could be expanded with vegetation which would also create sanctuaries for migratory birds. Reintroduced beavers and other ecosystem engineers could act as animal recruits who create new habitats, such as dams and lakes, which allow even more species to thrive.

How would you like to be a new college graduate working for a summer reintroducing beavers! Fixing drought one beaver at a time. I can’t think of anything better – for the planet OR for a young ecologist.

Finally, I read this morning that our own Morro Bay in California is about to get a lot smarter, thanks to Kate Lundquist of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center.

Morro Bay Science Explorations with the Estuary Program

Join the Morro Bay National Estuary Program for our Morro Bay Science Explorations talk!

Title of talk: Wildlife Conservation and Restoration in Our Creeks.

Kate Lundquist, Director of WATER Institute, Occidental Arts & Ecology Center.
Topic: The history of beaver in California and the importance of beaver to watershed restoration.

- March 21, 2019
- 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
- Free

WONDERFUL! The estuary is always getting a great deal of press for cute baby sea otters, its about time they saw some beavers coming their direction! Good luck Kate, and don’t forget to mention the most famous estuary beavers, ahem.

BEAVERS RECEIVE REPRIEVE

heidi08 Beavers and Scotland February 23, 2019

Great news has settled on our beaver neighbors to the Northeast today in the form of a beaver reprieve. No more killing without a permit in Scotland. If you’re anything like me you will be snorting through your coffee cup right now and saying “About frickin’ time!” and it really is, but we should still all still celebrate.

Scottish Government to give beavers protected status, outlawing their shooting without a licence

The Scottish Government has agreed to give beavers protected status, The Courier can reveal. The move will stamp out unregulated culling by making it illegal for them to be shot without a licence. It follows a plea from the Scottish Wildlife Trust after a female beaver was found shot in the chest at a Perthshire nature reserve.

The trust was among several conservation groups that signed an open letter to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in December, urging her to take action to safeguard the species and crackdown on uncontrolled shootings.

The Scottish Government will today confirm that the Eurasian or European species will be added to the list of European Protected Species of Animals, protected under Scottish law, with effect from May 1.

Come may first it won’t be open season on beavers, farmers must be SO disappointed! And it only took three and a half years. Imagine! Boy if I was a beaver I’d be lying REALLY low these next 65 days as everyone shoots as many as they can before the new rules.

Shooting will only be allowed under licence, managed by Scottish Natural Heritage.

Environment secretary Roseanna Cunningham said: “The Scottish Government believes in the highest standards of animal welfare – for both wild and domestic animals – and we felt it was high time that beavers enjoyed the same legal protection as other species like bats, dolphins, wildcats and otters.”

She said: “There are few species that have such significant and, largely positive, influence on the health and function of our ecosystems. The importance of beavers to Scotland’s biodiversity is huge.

As a woman who has waited breathlessly for this moment, allow me totell you now with all sincerity:

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to celebrate with this video.

DOES SCOTLAND KEEP PROMISES?

heidi08 Beavers and Scotland December 2, 2018

How to get rid of unwanted beavers? There are many schools of thought. There are people in Washington that advocate strongly for taking beavers away from problem areas and dropping them into the high country where they might do some good. In California we have decided in our golden and infinite wisdom that the best thing to do with unwanted beavers is to require a piece of paper that lets you crush them in a squeezing trap underwater. But other places have other ideas – from snares, to shotguns and everything in between,

Meanwhile, Scotland still can’t make up its mind.

Anger over delays in introducing laws to prevent shooting of beavers

CONSERVATIONISTS, welfare campaigners and the Scottish Greens have criticised delays in giving legal protection to wild beavers.

Some have blamed the Scottish Government and some have hit out at farmers, who have defended the hold-up despite fears it will mean more of the animals suffering and being shot.

Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT) said farmers themselves are to blame, using delaying tactics to block new laws which would give European protected species status to the animals.

England, of course, is working hard to avoid being thought of as “European” but Scotland would like the title. So there is a boatload of pressure asking action on the promise that was made two years ago – namely for the free beavers to be treated as a protected species. Which officials keep dragging their feet about.

The trust said the Government must “stop pandering” to farmers, and fears continued unregulated culling of adult beavers by farmers will mean beaver young, or kits, being left to die.

But the National Farmers Union in Scotland (NFUS) said new rules for controlling beavers needed to be tried and tested before the introduction of protected status. “Any delay in timescales is justifiable,” NFUS environment and land use manager, Andrew Midgely, told The Ferret.

“Keep pandering! Our position is strongly in favor of more pandering!” Says the farmer’s union. I have to admit to being a little curious how a farmer’s union works. Who do they work for exactly? Dthey ever go on strike?

SNH would only licence culling using accredited and trained controllers, Davies said. “That would give us better information on numbers being taken out in the countryside and help inform animal welfare issues,” she added.

“Animal welfare is a really important consideration, in particular in terms of whether adults might be taken out and leave dependent young, for example. ‘‘If you bring in a new management approach there could be controls on the timing of when animals can be taken out.”

You know, call me old school, but at the end of the day it seems to me that whether you die from being squeezed underwater or die from being shot in the head, you are equally dead. We know licensed trappers leave kits stranded too. Where do you think all those cute “orphans” in rehab come from?

NFUS’s Midgley refused to be interviewed about the delay. Instead he issued a statement saying the union accepts beavers will remain in Tayside, and in places beavers and people can co-exist happily.

But in “highly productive agricultural areas” he said beavers undermine river banks and protective flood banks, and impede farmland drainage by burrowing and damming.

He said: “It is therefore essential that when beavers are formally protected, there is a comprehensive management framework in place to give farmers confidence that they will be able to deal with problems should they arise, or indeed prevent problems from arising in the first place.”

It’s the ‘preventing problems’ that I hate. It’s this accepted policy that the risk of problems one day happening is worth the death of an animal right now. Imagine how we would feel if this was applied to people. “You look like the sort of person that one day might rob a grocery store so we’ve decided to ‘cull’ you and prevent the problem”.

“There’s no rational reason for further delays to laying the statutory instrument before Parliament to secure protected species status. The process to secure protected species status must happen now, and the pandering to a handful of farmers must stop.”

She said it was no longer worth SNH’s Scottish Beaver Forum continuing to meet because it “just needs a decision from ministers” on legislation

‘‘We would urge the Scottish Government to bring in legal protection for this wonderful native animal as soon as possible before more Scottish beavers suffer the same fate.”

The Greens’ Ruskell, pictured below, said: “Nearly 10 years after wild beavers were reintroduced in Argyll it’s deeply frustrating that these iconic animals still lack legal protection – despite the Government agreeing to protect them back in 2016.

Did we say protect them? We meant we’d protect them from boring lives. This living in terror for two years has got to add spice to their otherwise work-laden lives, right? How long does it take to keep promises in Scotland?

Apparently a little longer than 2 years.

When I said I would die a

bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

Much Ado About Nothing 2:3

BEAVERS THAT LIVE LIKE KINGS

heidi08 Beavers and Scotland March 6, 2018

Allan Water’s wide and deep,
And my dear Annie’s very bonnie.

Just imagine if you were the first beavers back in Scotland. Everywhere you travel is new territory to be discovered and apart for some otters and anglers you needn’t share with anyone else. No competition for food or resources, no territories to defend. Just miles and miles of curving streams for you to uncover at your own pace.

That’s what it must be like for the lucky beavers who avoid the angry farmer’s shotguns and get to explore in Scotland, a huge empty department store where they can roam freely at night like a flat-tailed Corduroy.. It is easy to see how they were able to travel some 70 miles from the River Tay to the River Allan to the river Teith to the river Fourth and finally Stirling.

Stirling fishermen claim beavers have returned to the River Forth

Stirling fishermen believe that beavers have returned to the Forth and its tributaries, the Teith and Allan Water. Tree stumps which appear to have been gnawed have been seen on the banks of the Allan Water near Cornton in recent weeks.

According to accounts of the time the animals had been common in parts of the country, particularly around the Loch Ness area.

Seventy-year-old Stirling salmon angler John Hunter, who has been fishing on the Forth since he was aged 10, said this week he has seen evidence of the animals on the Allan Water near Cornton.

He said: “I’m usually on the Forth every day fishing near Cruive Dykes. I first noticed fallen trees a few weeks ago and the stumps. There had been rumours circulating among fishermen about beavers in the area for quite a while, but this is the first time I have seen evidence with my own eyes. I’ve heard from fishermen there are beavers on the Forth and Teith further west.

Now of course we’ve all heard claims of “it’s a beaver!” only to find out it was actually a muskrat or broomstick so I was, of course, skeptical. Until I saw this and realized he was probably right. Beavers in Stirling. Beavers on the march. Ready or not, here beavers come.

“You can see that the trees have fallen after having been gnawed away. I’ve not seen a beaver yet, but this looks very much like the work of beavers to me. It would be great if they are there. They were driven to extinction by man after all. It’s great to think they are back in our rivers and close to Stirling.”

Stirling Observer nature correspondent Keith Graham said: “I would imagine that there are beavers on the Forth. I have heard they are on the Teith and I wouldn’t be surprised to find them in other tributaries of the Forth as well.

“There is a big debate on whether they are beneficial or not. The farming community tends to think that they cause too much damage – they can flood fields when they build their dams. However, overall I think they do good.”

Spoken like a wise man! You are right, beavers will do good for all your fourths and fens. I’m envious really, of both the beavers who get to explore your beautiful countryside, and the people who get to discover them.

Looking at the ancient lyrics about Allan Waters being deep and wide, it’s not hard to see how it evolved into this tune eventually. I would wish these beavers luck, but of course they are hardy souls who make their own wherever they go.