It’s not clear yet whether this is one beaver who escaped from elsewhere or a pair who were released by rewilders, but it sounds like a good dam move to me!
A couple whose garden was being vandalised in the night has uncovered a surprising culprit in Wales’ first wild beaver for 400 years.
The dam-building rodent was discovered by a husband and wife who noticed trees going missing and machete-like damage in a field next to their house in Pembrokeshire, west Wales.
Curious about the cause of the damage, the homeowners bought a ‘stealth camera’ which captured footage of the creature swimming in their pond and felling their trees.
The origins of the beaver are unexplained, but the landowners believe it may have come from an unsanctioned release by rewilding enthusiasts.
The rodent has been found living near a rural property where it has started to build itself a lodge under the family’s pond deck.
Nicknamed Anthony by the family – after military historian Antony Beevor – the herbivore has become as ‘fat as a pig’ spending as much as six hours a night chewing tree trunks and dragging branches around.
The discovery is only the fourth time a beaver has been found living wild in Britain.
Beavers – which can grow to be the size of a large spaniel – were hunted to extinction in Britain 400 years ago, but have been slowly reintroduced in recent years.
The landowners, who wished to remain anonymous to protect the location of the animal, were ‘astonished’ to discover the herbivore was living behind their house.
They said: ‘Some of our trees began to go missing overnight and others were simply being mauled. It looked like someone was hitting them with a machete.
‘There are no deer in Pembrokeshire, so we couldn’t work out what was causing the damage.
‘The only clue were some teeth marks left in the bark.’
Two weeks after first noticing the damage, the couple decided to buy a £100 stealth camera and leave it out overnight to try and catch the vandal in action.
When they reviewed the footage a week later, they spotted the creature.
‘To our astonishment, the camera showed a beaver swimming around our pond and eating our trees. We couldn’t believe it.
‘Since then, it has cleared quite a few trees and branches.
‘There is nothing subtle about a beaver. They are very easy to spot.’
The closest official colony of beavers to Pembrokeshire is in the Dyfi Estuary over 50 miles away in Mid Wales, where no escapes have been reported.
‘It’s much more likely the beaver has been released in Pembrokeshire by a determined rewilder’, the landowners added.
Since their reintroduction to the country in Argyll in 2009, beaver numbers have been increasing across the UK through enclosed colonies set up by various wildlife trusts.
But this is only the fourth time a beaver has been found living wild in Britain.
Other wild populations were discovered in Scotland’s Tay-Forth catchment area, in East Devon’s River Otter and on the Avon near Bristol.
A similar beaver discovery was made in East Devon in 2014, despite there being no reintroduction trials in the area.
Initially, DEFRA planned to remove the beavers, but the Devon Wildlife Trust persuaded them to allow England’s first wild beaver trial.
The trial was successful and in 2020 DEFRA announced the beavers could stay. In October 2022, beavers were protected by law in England.
But in Wales, where environmental law-making is devolved, no such protection exists, and the discovery of a wild beaver could now force the Welsh Government to legislate on the issue.
The Pembrokeshire landowners continued: ‘It looks like the Welsh Government need to legislate or they’ll be in danger of trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted.
‘With so many enclosed beavers around Britain, you wonder how long it will be before there are more escapees.’
The animals, which can live for as long as ten years and weigh up to 30kg, are not universally popular.
In Scotland, where beavers have been so successful many farmers feel their livelihoods are being threatened because beaver dams can flood valuable farmland.
The Scottish Government has even begun issuing licenses to cull them.
But rewilders call this ‘ecosystem engineering’ and highlight the positive effects of wetland creation, providing habitat for animals like otters, water voles, toads, frogs and wildfowl.
This is what makes beavers a ‘keystone species’, in other words, they are the glue that holds a habitat together.
One of Kelowna’s urban beavers is back splish-splashing after being rescued with an injured tail.
The beaver was captured from the Rotary Park Marsh on April 5, after a pedestrian noticed the sick-looking critter and contacted the Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society (IWRS).
The volunteers jumped into action and took the beaver to a vet to have the abscess drained. While waking up from the sedation, the beaver was given carrots and sweet potato, but she is now back on her regular diet of ‘browse’ such as twigs and other high-growing vegetation, said Eva Hartmann, founder of IWRS and registered veterinarian technician.
Everyday volunteers head out to the bush and pick twigs for the beaver to snack on.
Beavers munch on the tissue layer found just under the bark. Hartmann said the downtown girl in the IWRS’ care only likes to snack on poplar trees. The beaver spat out the Saskatoon berry bush and pine tree twigs that were collected for her. Hartmann laughed and said that she knew beavers preferred poplar and willow trees, but didn’t realize how picky they could be.
A new video was released from the Beaver Institute that is fantastic but they are going to tweak it and re-release it at a later date for now. Just know good things are afoot. Sneak preview my favorite line is that your local beaver pond is your rainforest, and your coral reef. How smart is that? This is a special edit from heidi who came home yesterday and is trying to figure things out.
Sorry about my silence yesterday. But one of the things I liked especially about Mike Digout’s tailslap video was that we have almost the exact same footage. Since I’ve become more of an expert I realize beaver tailslaps in the wild are MUCH MUCH FASTER and more intense. And I was always worried. Are our beavers delayed? Sick?
Seeing Mike’s video made me understand that our beavers are relaxed. That’s a tailslap from a beaver whose not so much alarmed as irked or making a point to friends. Isn’t that wonderful?
Meanwhile there’s some nice news from Calgary.
Residents upset about beavers being trapped in southeast community wetland
CALGARY — Jen Corbett discovered a dead beaver in a trap behind her home in the southeast Calgary community of Riverstone a few days ago, something she says has been ongoing since her family moved there last fall.
“For the past three years they’ve been trapping and killing them,” said Corbett.
“As opposed to finding other solutions that aren’t lethal, that would include maybe grates on the culverts or water levellers or other implementations that would allow us to co-exist with them.”
Hurray for Jen! And hurray for neighbors who care about wetlands! Apparently our good friend Adrien Nelson of FBD just installed a flow device not too far away so maybe the word is catching on. Stay tuned because this story could get even better!
Oh and I finally found peace after my disruption yesterday.
One of my very favorite stories to tell about the beavers came after the famous meeting that forced the city’s hand. The very newly formed Worth A Dam wanted to do its part and plant willow trees to replace the ones the beavers had eaten – thus taking some of the burden and showing the city everything would be okay. We had volunteers lined up and had worked with a nursery to buy natives and arrange free delivery.
The city, having been pushed around long enough by the beaver masses responded by saying before any planting would be allowed we needed an advanced biological assessment of the creek showing the trees they had taken and the effect on the ecosystem of the trees we wanted to replace them with. Basically it is clear in retrospect that they knew we were poor as church mice and they hoped we’d go away and take our rotten beavers with us.
Undaunted I picked up the phone and started calling environmental firms in Contra Costa County, Then in Alameda County. They all said they could do it but they all wanted $$$ and none of them loved beavers and wanted to help us out of the goodness of their hearts. Sadly I started to think the entire plan to show that the beavers could ‘pay for themselves’ and add value to the city wasn’t going to work.
I must have sat around sadly for an hour, and then the phone rang. It was Wendy Dexter then the head of Condor Consulting in Martinez, one of the very first to turn me down. Her voice sounded different right off the bat,
“I have a daughter” she said. “She’s four years old..”
Intrigued, I listened closely and said nothing.
“She made a tail at your recent event and she loves to wear it. She loves the beavers so every Saturday night we have to take her down to the bridge so she can wear her tail and watch them in the creek.”
If I’m telling the story in a formal presentation I usually show this photo:
“So we’ll help you. I send our senior biologist to do the assessment and he can start monday. Will that be soon enough?”
We got our assessment and we the beavers got their trees and we also got a story that has charmed generations of advocates from Montclaire to Mt Diablo Audubon.
And that little four year old is at UCDavis now.
Because sometimes all you can do to combat horrific obstacles is to simply be persistently and vociferously adorable. Which I thought of this morning when I read this.
A frustrated biologist who has ditched plans to reintroduce beavers in Carmarthenshire says a proper management plan is needed because the animals are gaining a foothold further afield. Nick Fox, of wildlife management group the Bevis Trust, said he had hoped to release a small number of beavers on a trial basis in the Cowin and Cynnen rivers, west of Carmarthen.
But he said after three years of discussions with environment body Natural Resources Wales (NRW), he felt sufficient progress was not being made. “I ran out of patience,” he said. “The disease risk assessment (of the application) was £6,000, and they wanted us to do a hydrological survey of the whole river system.”
Ahh Nick, we understand. It is enormously frustrating to know in your head that if you could just do the thing you have planned it would work out fine and everyone would be happier and better off. But they won’t let you show that it will work so you have no way of proving your point to the world and they just want to sit at their desks and count up the number of things that could go wrong.
I don’t know the answer and I don’t have £6,000 to give you. But I have learned over the years something about this process of bending unwilling minds and I can see right now that the answer is going to have to contain lots and lots of tails.
Wales is inviting public comment before it makes a decision about whether or not to reintroduce beavers. I wonder what people will say? Ooh! I know! Call on me!
Members of the public will be asked to have their say on plans to reintroduce beavers into the Welsh countryside. Depending on the level of response and issues raised, a final decision could come before the end of the year.
Supporters of the plan believe they will bring environmental and economic benefits, but others remain unconvinced. Beavers were once native to Britain but were hunted to extinction for their fur in the Middle Ages.
The animal has been reintroduced into and in recent years and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is currently considering an application for a licence to release ten pairs of beavers into the River Cowyn in Carmarthenshire.
The application has been submitted by Wildlife Trusts Wales and the Carmarthenshire-based Bevis Trust, which has three families of beavers penned on its land ready to be released.
Bevis Trust founder Nick Fox believes the experience of beaver reintroduction elsewhere proves that the animals will bring big benefits to the Welsh countryside.
He told Radio Wales’ programme: “Beavers have a key role to play in the ecosystem. They build dams in the slower-flowing small rivers – not in big rivers – and those dams act as natural filters for pollutants and sediment.”
Alicia Leow-Dyke, who oversees the Welsh Beaver Project for Wildlife Trusts Wales, argued beavers would help improve biodiversity.
“Many studies have shown that where you have beavers you have a much richer biodiversity, you have a mosaic of different habitats – and that’s possibly something we have lost in the United Kingdom,” she added.
Dam straight they do! Of course Wales should reintroduce beavers, although I’m going to predict that it won’t matter if you decide to or not, because they will find you all on their own.
This moss guy worries me. I get worried when lies are repeated over and over again without any change. Usually the liar gets called out and reshapes his lie a little. ‘I know beavers don’t eat moss but I’m worries about the wildlife that depends on it” or some such alteration. This is blatant unrefined lying over several months. I call it gansta’.
That is a concern for botanist Ray Woods, who has visited the River Otter in Devon where under licence.
“I asked the question, “What are they eating” and they just said, “Sorry Ray, we don’t know”. What’s been the impact on all these masses of mosses and liverworts and lichens that are absolutely bang full of useful pharmaceuticals?”
I’ve said before and I’ll say again, there is NO EARTHLY WAY that Ray ever asked anyone involved with the beavers in Devon what they eat and got the response “We don’t know!” for an answer. Unless he asked a gas station attendant or a delivery man.The beavers in Devon are some of the best observed, best studied, best researched any where in the world. There is no way they have not counted every blade of grass or sapling the beavers have nibbled.
I hate to get all biblical on you but I can’t resist Luke 12:24
Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?
It just so happens, Ray, that beavers are WAY more responsible than ravens. They both reap and sow, in a manner of speaking. In fact sometimes. In fact beavers are sometimes called “Willow farmers” because as streams get wetter and more complex willow or aspen appears in more places.
More beavers means more trees.
And more trees means MORE lichens and mosses.
Not less.
Sheesh! Get a new lie, will you?
Bob Kobres of Georgia wrote yesterday that he misses the left margin and he disliked the loading diamonds. I don’t have power over margins but VOILA! The diamonds are gone! And about those share buttons, if you click on the post they appear at the bottom of the page. OR if you use the share buttons at the top they will post this very column.
And check out the ID hint menu. It’s fun. We’re finding our way in the new world.
It’s not clear yet whether this is one beaver who escaped from elsewhere or a pair who were released by rewilders, but it sounds like a good dam move to me!
Supporters of the plan believe they will bring environmental and economic benefits, but others remain unconvinced. Beavers were once native to Britain but were hunted to extinction for their fur in the Middle Ages.
ke, who oversees the Welsh Beaver Project for Wildlife Trusts Wales, argued beavers would help improve biodiversity.
