Beavers have returned to the waters of Somerset and Wiltshire, hundreds of years after being wiped out.
Escapes from enclosures and unlicensed introductions are suspected to be behind the rodent’s return.
As many as 50 beavers could be living in the West Country, Natural England has revealed.
The government’s nature advisor had been investigating the possibility of beavers in the region following reports of the rodents in and around the Rivers Frome and Avon. The resulting report, published earlier this month, found a wealth of evidence that beavers were thriving in the areas, including dams, gnawn trees and burrows.
In total, it is estimated there could be anywhere from 36 to 62 adult beavers in sections of the rivers near Bath, Chippenham and Trowbridge, living in 13 families. If baby beavers, known as kits, and family units living in areas of the river which couldn’t be surveyed are included, then this figure could be even higher.
A spokesperson for the Avon Wildlife Trust previously described the presence of beavers in the area as ‘extremely significant’, adding that ‘the presence of this beaver population will support other wildlife and help us to tackle the ecological emergency.’
Where have the West Country’s beavers come from?
Eurasian beavers are rapidly being reintroduced across the UK, having been driven to extinction in the country over 400 years ago through hunting for the fur, meat and perfume trade. The mammals are now present across the country, from Scotland all the way south to Devon and London.
Officially, beavers can only be reintroduced into enclosures with a license from the government. However, many beavers are living wild following escapes from these sites, as well as unofficial introductions.
For instance, one of the UK’s largest populations of beavers can be found in Tayside, Scotland, is thought to be the result of a mixture of accidental and illegal releases.
While beavers are now considered a native species in England, Wales and Scotland, it is still a crime to release them without a license, which can result in up to two years in prison as well as an unlimited fine.
Many of the beavers in the West Country are thought to have been released unofficially, with the report estimating that these have probably taken place since 2016. Others, meanwhile, may be the descendants of animals which escaped from a private collection in the 2000s.
The beavers have now spread widely, with the majority of the families found in the River Frome, a tributary of the River Avon. Four families are found in the Avon itself, while another is found on the By Brook.
Though there had been reports of beavers in the River Brue and Kennet and Avon Canal, the latest report didn’t find enough evidence to verify their presence.
In total, the beavers may occupy as much as 11% of the available riverbanks in the areas of Wiltshire and Somerset where they live. Each family is estimated to have a bankside territory as long as eight kilometres, which is above average for England’s beavers.
While they may cover a relatively large area, the beavers are not thought to be having a major impact on their ecosystem at the moment. Though some families have started building dams and felling trees, the majority are still getting established in their new home.
With beavers having been made a protected species in England in October 2022, it’s thought that their populations will only grow if left undisturbed. While the report notes their activities could eventually pose a risk to transport, this is not likely in the near future.
Instead, it recommends further research to promote co-existence with these beavers. Assessing their genetic health, and coming up with management plans, can help to ensure these rodents can keep beavering away in the West Country.
The signs are instantly recognizable: partially chewed trees, pointy stumps and sprawling collections of sticks and logs in the middle of waterways. These all signal the presence of beavers, the plump, semi-aquatic critters that were once nearly hunted to extinction.
Established wildlife laws and reintroduction brought their numbers to stable levels, but they still remain a fraction of what they once were. Further recovery of beaver populations is crucial.
Because they significantly alter, manage and even improve the areas around them, beavers have earned the title of “ecosystem engineers.” Their work enhances the surrounding landscape and ecosystems, making these critters some of the most important, not to mention adorable, stewards of nature. Here are five ways beavers help the environment.
Beavers help control water flow.
You might assume that since beaver dams block water, they must cause floods, but that’s far from the case. Dams are penetrable structures that slow water flow, resulting in less erosion and flooding than undammed, fast flowing water. Dams physically store water on land where it soaks into the soil and initiates plant growth, able to turn bone-dry areas into bountiful wetlands. If you repeatedly visit beaver habitat in different seasons, you can see the transformations that take place thanks to their dams. A landscape often looks completely different from even just a few months prior.
Beavers improve water quality.
Rainwater runoff from artificial surfaces washes toxins into waterways, threatening aquatic ecosystems. Wetlands surrounding beaver dams act like kidneys by removing pollutants from water, effectively cleaning it. As dams decrease water flow, nutrient-rich sediment usually swept away by the current instead sinks and collects on the bottom. This abundance of minerals filters and breaks down harmful materials like pesticides and leaves areas downstream of dams healthier and less polluted than upstream.
Beaver activity creates more habitat for other wildlife.
Since beaver dams slow water flow, the original path is altered as the water meanders over additional ground, creating more wetlands where other species thrive. Important plants that feed animals and provide for people see their numbers increase over 33% in beaver wetlands, while birds nest on riverbanks, fish swim about and mammals forage for food in these natural havens. In fact, 25% of species living in these wetlands fully depend on beaver activity for survival.
Beavers stop wildfires.
Increasing wildfires destroy nature and emit greenhouse gasses, but beaver activity can hold the devastating flames at bay. Wetlands made by beaver dams concentrate water and moisturize the landscape, making it harder for fires to spread as potential fuel becomes harder to burn. Wildlife can shelter in these wet sanctuaries, safe from an encroaching blaze. Beavers might not drive red trucks or slide down poles, but they make an excellent fire department nonetheless.
Beavers help us fight climate change.
The primary driver behind climate change is the massive amount of carbon human activity pumps into the atmosphere. The more we emit, the more it builds up, but beavers help reduce its accumulation as their wetlands absorb and store the greenhouse gas. Globally, beaver wetlands hold 470,000 tons of carbon each year and perform carbon-capture work worth tens of millions of dollars. Restoring beavers to their natural habitats and widespread numbers can lead to further carbon absorption as the animals proliferate, construct dams and establish more wetlands. More beavers mean more wetlands, which mean less atmospheric carbon, a win-win-win scenario.
The incredible feats beavers perform should not be understated, whether it’s their beneficial environmental work or ability to transform landscapes. As the world’s foremost natural ecosystem engineers, they play crucial roles in managing nature unlike any other animal. You can celebrate these incredible critters on International Beaver Day every April 7. The next time you’re hiking and come across those telltale bites on trees or piles of sticks, be sure to thank a beaver for all they do in supporting the natural world by just being their busy little selves.
Credit: UT Jackson School of Geosciences/ National Center for Health Statistics/ USDA Forest Service.
A new species of ancient beaver that was rediscovered by researchers in The University of Texas at Austin’s fossil collections has been named after Buc-ee’s, a Texas-based chain of popular travel centers known for its cartoon beaver mascot. The beaver is called Anchitheriomys buceei, or “A. buceei” for short. Steve May, a research associate at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences, said that the beaver’s Texas connection and a chance encounter with a Buc-ee’s billboard are what inspired the name.
May is the lead author of the paper that describes A. buceei, along with another, much smaller, species of fossil beaver. Published in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica, the paper provides an overview of beaver occurrences along the Texas Gulf Coast from 15 million to 22 million years ago based on bones and archival records in the UT collections.
While driving down a highway in 2020, May spotted a Buc-ee’s billboard that said “This is Beaver Country.” The phrase brought to mind the Texas beaver fossils he had been studying at UT’s Texas Vertebrate Paleontology Collections.
“I thought, ‘Yeah, it is beaver country, and it has been for millions of years,'” May said.
A. buceei lived in Texas about 15 million years ago. To the casual observer, it probably wouldn’t have looked much different from beavers living in Texas today, according to study co-author Matthew Brown, the director of the Jackson School’s vertebrate paleontology collections. However, one key difference is size. A. buceei was bigger—about 30% larger than modern beavers—though still much smaller than the bear-size beavers that lived in North America during the last Ice Age.
The UT collections includes A. buceei fossils from six Texas sites. But most of what researchers know about the new fossil beaver comes from a unique partial skull from Burkeville, Texas. The fossil is a fusion of bone and brain cast that was created when sediment naturally seeped into the beaver’s brain cavity eons ago, creating a rock replica of the brain as the specimen fossilized.
See the rest of the article. And there is another bit of news on PHYS-ORG that might lessen concerns about the greenhouse gas produced in wetlands.
Annual mean near-surface air temperature response to methane, decomposed into (a) longwave and shortwave effects; (b) longwave effects only; and (c) shortwave effects only. Credit: Robert Allen/UCR
Most climate models do not yet account for a new UC Riverside discovery: methane traps a great deal of heat in Earth’s atmosphere, but also creates cooling clouds that offset 30% of the heat. Greenhouse gases like methane create a kind of blanket in the atmosphere, trapping heat from Earth’s surface, called longwave energy, and preventing it from radiating out into space. This makes the planet hotter.
“A blanket doesn’t create heat, unless it’s electric. You feel warm because the blanket inhibits your body’s ability to send its heat into the air. This is the same concept,” explained Robert Allen, UCR assistant professor of Earth sciences.
In addition to absorbing longwave energy, it turns out methane also absorbs incoming energy from the sun, known as shortwave energy. “This should warm the planet,” said Allen, who led the research project. “But counterintuitively, the shortwave absorption encourages changes in clouds that have a slight cooling effect.”
This effect is detailed in the journal Nature Geoscience, alongside a second finding that the research team did not fully expect. Though methane generally increases the amount of precipitation, accounting for the absorption of shortwave energy suppresses that increase by 60%.
Both types of energy—longwave (from Earth) and shortwave (from sun)—escape from the atmosphere more than they are absorbed into it. The atmosphere needs compensation for the escaped energy, which it gets from heat created as water vapor condenses into rain, snow, sleet, or hail.
“Essentially, precipitation acts as a heat source, making sure the atmosphere maintains a balance of energy,” said study co-author Ryan Kramer, a researcher at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Methane changes this equation. By holding on to energy from the sun, methane is introducing heat the atmosphere no longer needs to get from precipitation.
Additionally, methane shortwave absorption decreases the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface. This in turn reduces the amount of water that evaporates. Generally, precipitation and evaporation are equal, so a decrease in evaporation leads to a decrease in precipitation.
“This has implications for understanding in more detail how methane and perhaps other greenhouses gases can impact the climate system,” Allen said. “Shortwave absorption softens the overall warming and rain-increasing effects but does not eradicate them at all.”
. . .
Scientific interest in methane has increased in recent years as levels of emissions have increased. Much comes from industrial sources, as well as from agricultural activities and landfill. Methane emissions are also likely to increase as frozen ground underlying the Arctic begins to thaw.
Regardless of our contribution to the atmosphere, as the first article shows, we beaver folks have been at this for a very long time. It’s your recent behavior that’s causing the problems! Check out the report.
Are you looking for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education, storm water management and a role model?
I offer you the beaver!
Within sight of the lights of Owen Field lies a beaver’s dam. What a learning opportunity for Norman’s children.
You want more engineers? I can’t think of a better teacher than a beaver. They are one of the smartest animals we know. Construction management is no problem for them. They are the original “design and build” construction company.
You want a role model?
Beavers mate for life and are fiercely loyal to their families along with being very protective. “Tail slapping” against the water’s surface is an indication to their family that danger is approaching.
You want a hard worker?
“Busy as a beaver” as the old saying goes. A harder worker hasn’t been made. They start early and finish late.
A grand park along the Canadian River with a nature center and an outdoor classroom would give students a unique learning environment.
So how does a beaver build a dam?
Phase 1: They drop trees in a stream resulting in the water slowing down.
Phase 2: Then they gather branches, sticks and rocks in their mouths and swim out to the felled trees. Using their front paws, they start plugging holes constructing a dam that slows the flow of the stream. It creates a pond behind the dam.
They build their houses, called lodges, in the water. The dams create ponds that slow the water down (this is the central theme of todays column #payattention) so it doesn’t wash away their house. Good idea, eager beaver.
Here’s another good idea of the beaver. They build their lodges with underwater entrances. Predators have a tougher time getting to them this way i.e., they have to hold their breath and swim underwater. There aren’t many beaver predators that are snorkelers. I can only think of one. Us!
Beavers are always thinking ahead.
They manipulate their environment in order to survive. Again, very cleaver eager beaver.
Beavers love willow branches and will store them at the bottom of their pond for winter eating. Beavers don’t want to venture far in the winter to gather food since they are targets for all those hungry predators.
Beavers are herbivores, meaning they only eat plants.
Beavers are the original stormwater engineers. Shawn O’Leary, Norman’s public works director, gave a lecture once about stormwater. He said, “the number one principle to remember about stormwater/rain runoff management is — SLOW IT DOWN.” Fast water erodes the land, floods our streets and muddies our drinking water.
Beavers were designed for stormwater management. They are nature’s stormwater mitigator. Beaver dams are like speed bumps in creeks. They improve water quality by allowing pollutants to settle purifying dirty runoff water.
Beaver ponds also lessen the damage from droughts. They hold water for thirsty animals to drink. They are a natural filtration system, slowing down the water as it moves down stream.
Beaver dams create wetlands that are critical habitats for thousands of other species of animals. Birds, amphibians, fish and aquatic insects all benefit from the hard-working beaver.
My youngest sister, Deb, and I were hiking remote trails in the Dolly Sods region of West Virginia’s Allegheny Mountains when we happened upon something we’d never seen before. A massive wooden dam the length of a football field and intricately laced with twigs and small logs. It was so sturdy we explored it. It was the work of nature’s busiest mammals. Beavers.
Nature’s engineers are no strangers to Bucks County. They helped define its early history until hunted to extinction. Lenape Indians named streams for them — “amochkhannes”. That’s “amoch” for beaver and “khannes” for creeks. Tongue-tangled English settlers figured out the meaning. “Oh, beaver . . . beaver creek!” they declared. The translation endured for the longest at 11 miles in Nockamixon and Tinicum townships.
Amochkhannes were just about everywhere. On tributaries draining the Great Swamp below Quakertown, the plateau between Ottsville and the Delaware River in Upper Bucks and lowland streams of Central and Lower Bucks. Beaver ponds provided drinking water for livestock, places to fish and a natural means of flood control. It seemed the perfect symbiosis between humans and beavers. What’s more, the critters love working the dreadful night shift.
By the 1700s, a beaver holocaust was underway. European tailors couldn’t keep up with demand for the soft, furry pelts to make top hats and felt-trimmed haute couture.
Photo taken in 1886 of beaver fur top hats in North Dakota (public domain)
Discovery of “castoreum” from beaver sex glands also became a key ingredient in perfume.
An 1811 beaver derived French perfume (public domain)
When the source of beavers dried up in Russia, furriers turned to an endless supply in North America. Indians and immigrant trappers raced to feed the market. Slaughter of beavers was relentless.
Hunters earned $4 a pelt. In today’s currency, that would be $80. A hunter could earn $4,000 for the typical 50-pelt haul.
Uncontrolled harvesting exterminated beavers from Pennsylvania and most Eastern states. A miracle saved those left in North America when beaver fur fell out of fashion. The hunts subsided. The hunts subsided. By the 20th century, citizens began realizing the animals’ environmental benefits. “Today this aquatic fur bearer is back,” declared the Pennsylvania Game Commission last year.
I’d say “Hurray! The best dam engineers are back! Don’t damn them for their fur ever again!”
Okay, I’m going to break my rule. Usually I wrote about several complicated beaver notions on this site, quoting research or experts or the news of the day, But not today. Today I’m going to write about just one sentence. On inexplicable sentence from the great state of Iowa. And let me once again poise the age old question: Why do we let them vote first?
While there are no oceans or seas in Iowa, and some 95% of its natural wetlands were converted to agricultural cropland over the past two centuries, the state is bordered by rivers and has an abundance of wetlands, lakes, ponds and even standing water in farm fields that provide habitat for a huge variety of creatures.
In a recent webinar hosted by Iowa Learning Farms, Adam Janke, Extension wildlife specialist and assistant professor at Iowa State University, highlighted some of the cast of characters found in Iowa’s aquatic ecosystems.
Janke selected 27 species that are found in Iowa to represent the diversity, which spans insects, mammals, reptiles, fish and others.
Okay, 27 species is a nice round number. That is more than I might expect from Iowa’s waterways. But it’s this sentence that stopped me cold.
Wetland mammals such as the muskrat and beaver were also discussed in the webinar. “Muskrats are one species that is recognized for the benefits other creatures enjoy from the ways in which muskrats manipulate their environment,” Janke said. “The reestablishment of trumpeter swans has been well supported by their use of abandoned muskrat huts as nesting sites. And the still waters held back by beaver dams create excellent environments for Iowa’s only native trout species, the brook trout.”
On the left is the muskrat. On the right is the beaver. Only one of these manipulates the environment. Photo by Rusty Cohn
Muskrats manipulate their environment?
Muskrats?
I mean lay aside the questionable grammar of “muskrats is one species”. What exactly do they do to to manipulate the environment?
Chew it into a new shape?
Now now maybe Mr. Janke is being misquoted. Or misheard. Maybe he meant BEAVERS and the reporter just wrote down muskrats because they both live in the water. But I watched muskrats daily for many years as they swam alongside the things that ACTUALLY manipulate their environment. And they didn’t lift a finger unless it was to eat something.
Well give it up to Williamstown Vermont, which is a whopping 90 miles from the home of Skip Lisle the inventor of the Beaver Deceiver. Not only did they show determination to look a gift horse in the mouth but they voted to refuse the horse entirely. That’s some civic planning they have going there.
WILLIAMSTOWN — Fox Woods Estates got a virtual thumbs up from the Select Board Monday night. Beaver baffles? Not so much.
The latter decision involved Protect Our Wildlife Vermont’s offer to install a “beaver deceiver” designed to prevent industrious beavers from clogging three large culverts that run under Industry Street.
One of the simple structures, which typically involve a few wooden posts and some sturdy wire fencing and a stretch of plastic culvert — would cover the three side-by-side culverts on Industry Street that beavers have made an issue in the past.
Town Manager Jackie Higgins told board members representatives of Protect Our Wildlife Vermont had scouted the site and the organization was prepared to invest up to $2,500 on building the structure they contend would keep the culverts from being clogged and water flowing freely.
An added upside — particular if you’re a beaver — is there would be no need to trap the animals just because they can be a nuisance.
The Select Board wasn’t sold.
That’s right. Never mind that the Protect our Wildlife was willing to foot the bill, and never mind that they had already done the research and looked into the costs of a flow device at that particular site. never mind that they woudn’t have to fly the expert in 3000 miles and pay for him to stay at the local best western, this fine city decided it won’t allow itself to be led around by the nose and dragged into winning solutions when years of practice have proven it could fail perfectly well on its own.
Not because members objected to one of the structures being installed at no cost to the town, and not necessarily because the town would be on the hook to maintain them for the next 10 years.
The bigger concern — one expressed by Selectman Matthew Rouleau and echoed by others — involved a requirement the board sign a memorandum of understanding essentially waiving the town’s right to enlist the assistance of a trapper in the event the beavers aren’t baffled, or the baffles just don’t work.
“I don’t have any problem with them trying these baffles, I just don’t want to sign off that we can’t do anything about it if it fails,” Rouleau said.
Chairman Rodney Graham said he shared that concern.
“If we’re in a flooding situation and the baffles cause the water to back up enough so it actually floods somebody’s property, are we going to be liable for that?” he said.
So rather than pay every year for the half hour of manpower it would take to have Bob from public works clean out leaves from the fence, they decided in their infinite wisdom it was better to keep hiring trappers annually and renting that backhoe from the good folks in Brookfield.
Rouleau said he believed the answer to that question was “yes” and while he wasn’t opposed to experimenting with the ‘beaver deceiver” and was hopeful it might actually work, he wasn’t prepared to take trapping off the table.
Board members agreed to invite a representative of the nonprofit organization to its meeting next month to explore whether the memorandum of understanding could be adjusted to address their concerns about liability.
Mr. Rouleau added regally, “The beaver itself is an ugly creature, but it may kiss my ring if it likes”
My goodness these people don’t know a good thing when its handed to them on a silver platter. with a fork and several pairs of chopsticks. Well you gave it the college try, you know what they say about leading a stubborn-ass select-board horse to water. Just because you brought it right to the thing it needs most in the world, and your state is FAMOUS for the man who invented it, and you’ve researched it for years and know for a fact it would be the solution they thirst for, you can’t make them drink.
Or to use the famous quote from the Algonquin Round table:
Dorothy Parker was once asked to use the word horticulture in a sentence. “You can lead a horticulture,” she replied, “but you can’t make her think.”
Assuming that article left a bad taste in your mouth as it did mine, this is the ultimate palate ceanser This is the winning trail cam video from Betsy Potter in New York, I made me happier than any single thing in 2020. For obvious reasons. Your welcome.
There’s more info on the website. But don’t miss this flattering article below! They really did a great job of describing just how valuable we are!
WILLIAMSTOWN — Fox Woods Estates got a virtual thumbs up from the Select Board Monday night. Beaver baffles? Not so much.
