At this point you might be asking yourself “Is there any beaver news in the world that’s not about Ben Goldfarb’s book?”. And of course there is, so settle in because yesterday was a beaver bonanza day as they released beavers in to Forest Dean in England to help with flooding and biodiversity. It took my English husband forever to pinpoint that the Forest of Dean was North of Devon on the edge of the west coast before Wales. Everyone – and I mean EVERYONE – covered it, the local papers, the national papers, the news. If an entire nation didn’t just hear that beavers help flooding I’d be very surprised.
Let’s go with a nice respectable paper like the Guardian.
Beavers released in Forest of Dean as solution to flooding
Four hundred years after the beaver was hunted to extinction in the UK, two of the mammals have been reintroduced on government land in an English forest as part of a scheme to assess whether they could be a solution to flooding.
Two Eurasian beavers were released on Tuesday into their new lodge within a large penned-off section of the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. The hope is that the animals will build dams and create ponds on Greathough Brook, which feeds into the River Wye, and slow the flow of water through the steep-sided, wooded valley at times of torrential rainfall.
In 2012 the villages of Lydbrook and Upper Lydbrook were badly flooded. Hundreds of thousands of pounds has been spent on conventional schemes such as replacing drains to try to keep the communities dry and safe.
The government hopes that introducing the beavers into a 6.5-hectare (16-acre) enclosure on Forestry Commission land will help hold back the waters in a more natural way and improve biodiversity.
This comes straight from the top, the secretary of the environment Michael Grove. So it’s important to realize the significance. Of course they haven’t yet decided the niceties of whether of not the beavers have a protected status in the UK or not – but heck why worry about the little niggling details?
Rebecca Wilson, the head of planning and environment for the Forestry Commission in west England, said: “Beavers are natural habitat engineers, restoring complex wetland habitats and providing habitat for declining species whilst slowing the flow of water downstream.”
As well as having the potential to ease flooding, the beavers may also improve the habitat for other flora and fauna. Greathough Brook was once home to thriving populations of water vole, glow-worms and wood white and pearl-bordered fritillary butterflies, but they have vanished as the trees have blocked out much of the light. The beavers are expected to harvest some of the timber, which could improve the habitat for other species.
Well, that’s nice. Yeah beavers! And yeah ministry of the environment.
Can you imagine some day our secretary of the interior saying beavers benefit the environment? What am I saying. That could never happen. He’s too busy selling off assets. But this is a great article.
I confess I actually get worried when I see headlines like “Beavers prevent flooding” for the same reason we avoid headlines like “eating kale prevents cancer”. We want the word helps in there somewhere, because nothing is guaranteed and two beavers can’t change the climate on their own, Oh and parts of this paragraph was a concern.
Officials emphasized that the beavers had been tested for disease and a management plan was in place to make sure the enclosure remains secure. They also stressed that the beavers do not eat fish and would not stray more than 30 metres (100ft) from freshwater.
Um……about not leaving the water….ah well never mind.
