Beavers Make New Friends

heidi08 Beavers October 27, 2014

beaver_itv_interview — Claire Wright giving itv beaver interview

The Devon beavers have all kinds of allies. They have farmers, and shop keepers, and school children, and politicians. And their number is growing. When the people lead the leaders will follow and Martinez knows first hand that is true about beavers.

Claire Wright is the Independent (unaffiliated) member of the Ottery County Council. I assumed she’d be pro-beaver until the day she was elected, but apparently I misjudged her commitment, because she won the election and she’s still advocating beaver sanity. Here’s her blog post today:

Why DEFRA should abandon plans to capture our beavers

On Friday I received a letter from Lord De Mauley via Mr Swire, confirming that DEFRA intends to capture them this year.

Friends of the Earth has launched a legal challenge on the basis that the animals are protected by EU law and so cannot be lawfully captured. So now, the government, with its massive financial problems could face a huge legal bill, on top of the capture and testing programme bill, which is likely to cost tens of thousand of pounds….. and for what?

To remove a group of native animals that local people have fallen in love with and that are living happily and harmlessly on a local river.

Our beavers are the only wild beavers in England. Leave them alone!!

The freedom of the beavers is now so popular in England that the East Devon MP has also asked for them to be returned to the Otter (albeit after first testing them to make sure the don’t have the parasite no one is really worried about).

Hugo Swire: Return beavers to the River Otter

East Devon MP Hugo Swire has called on Defra and Natural England to process a licence that will allow beavers to return to the River Otter, providing that they prove disease free after their capture and testing.

In July, Mr Swire held a meeting with Defra Minister Lord de Mauley along with representatives from the Devon Wildlife Trust to discuss this matter.

Mr Swire said: ‘The logical way to proceed now is for Natural England to capture the beavers and test them for the dangerous Echinococcus multilocularis (EM) parasite.

‘In the event of the beavers testing negative, I believe that they should then be released back into the River Otter, under licence, and monitored for a specific period. This, of course, must be done in close consultation with the local landowners and farmers’

Otherwise known as the “In the event that people do exactly what we want, I think we should let them” answer. This wan support was not good enough for the robust Ms. Wright who responded with:

It is encouraging that Mr Swire is doing something to put pressure on the seemingly paranoid DEFRA, however, the answer is surely to abandon the expensive and unnecessary capture plans, rather than risk the animals becoming ill or dying in captivity either before or after they are operated on and tested for a disease that Public Health England are apparently unconcerned about them having.

If the kits are separated from the parents, they will probably die, either in captivity or on the river. They rely on their parents for warmth and food.

I have asked Mr Swire twice now if he will urge DEFRA to abandon the plans, to no avail.

I’m trying to imagine Rob Schroder and Mike Menesini scrambling to show that they defend our beavers more than their opponents. (Give me minute, that’s a nice image and it makes me giggle.) The beavers in the river Otter must be really, really popular. More popular than the the beavers in Martinez. More popular than ice cream in July. I mean like Beatles popular.

Back in California I’ve been hard at work on a grant for our 8th festival. Yesterday I heard confirmation from artist Marc Poulin that he is excited to make buttons for our event and going to hand design the images himself, offering us an amazing deal. Each child will get a burlap tail where earned pins can be displayed, and since the price is lower we can offer 20 designs and involve more exhibits.Marc has generously donated to our auction in the past and is excited about coming on board. You’ve seen his creativity in boutiques, cutting edge shops and pet stores across the country. His designs are made here by his team at his warehouse in Oakland California and no one ever looks at his artwork without smiling. Here, I’ll prove it.

If I were you I would find a child to bring along with me on August 1st, because you are going to want one of everything. Thanks Marc!

Goliath, meet David

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? September 3, 2014

Ottery Town Council pledges support for wild beaver family to remain in the River Otter

OTTERY Town Council has pledged its support for a family of beavers, whose future hangs in the balance, to be allowed to remain on the banks of the River Otter downstream.

At the full council meeting on Monday, September 1, there was a unanimous vote among town councillors for the Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) to leave them be.

Ottery ward member, Councillor Roger Giles had requested that the council discussed and gave its backing to the beavers and proposed that the council ask East Devon MP Hugo Swire, to insist that DEFRA return the beavers to the river as soon as they have been tested.

Defra say catching East Devon’s beavers could take months after rumours the wild animals are now in Honiton

Pass me the popcorn. Something tells me this is about to get very, very interesting. Just imagine the kind of civic pressure it would take to get the Martinez City council to give a unanimous vote to support the beavers. They never even voted to tolerate the beavers. Devon must be a hotbed of public beaver-protection about now, with farmers keeping an eye on their lands and hurrying beavers along when ever the government trappers lumber into the area.

Councillor Claire Wright, independent member of East Devon District Council, said there was “general bafflement” in the area as to why they should be removed.

She said: “Human beings were responsible for the extinction of beavers in this country several hundred years ago because they were hunted for their fur, so it is now our responsibility to do what we can to support beavers’ reintroduction to our rivers.

“And they are good for rivers too, helping with water purity and they are completely vegetarian, so are no threat to small animals.

“The decision to let them stay should be made by the community, not by officials from London. There is a lot of support locally for them remaining on the river and general bafflement about why Defra would want to remove them. There needs to be a full consultation before any decisions are made.”

Someone pinch me, I think I’m dreaming. City government fighting the feds over the benefits of beavers. I hope I don’t wake up before it gets to the good part. Even if, God forbid, this doesn’t end well for these particular beavers, it’s put the issue in the public eye and dramatically made a point. Beavers are good for creeks. And Anglers are wrong.

The Angling Trust has been campaigning against moves to introduce beavers to England because of the damage that they can do to rivers, migrating fish runs and the potential spread of diseases.

Mark Lloyd, chief Executive of the Angling Trust, said: “Nowadays too many people seem to want to see ‘rewilded’ mammals introduced to our landscapes, but we must re-build damaged river ecosystems from the bottom up, not from the top down.

“Urgent and concerted Action is needed to restore habitats and fish populations in our rivers rather than irresponsible re-introduction programmes.”

Of course you know what’s really happening. The UK can’t protect fishermen interests from dams or culverts or sewers or water quality or power plants. They can’t keep fish alive by reducing pollution or human waste or global warming. But dammit they CAN get rid of those pesky beavers. That’s something right?

Obviously Worth A Dam offers all our support to the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories that are doing the actual trapping. Here’s some helpful advice for your hunt.

Oh and there’s a new DEFRA game you might want to play. It’s called “Change the Acronym to fit the Crime”. I started with

Does Everything Fishermen Request, Arrogantly.
Drives Extinction Frantically Rewarding Anglers

But my favorite was

Don’t Ever Feel Righteous Again.”

Wanna play?

The people have spoken

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Who's saving beavers now? August 20, 2014

Overwhelming support for River Otter beavers to stay wild heard at consultation

OVERWHELMING opposition against the Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) proposals to remove a family of beavers from the River Otter this autumn was expressed at a public consultation event.

The wave of public support for the animals was demonstrated at the Devon Wildlife Trust staged event in Ottery St Mary, which is just upstream from where the beavers are thought to be residing.

But critics of the proposals believe that the suggestion of rounding up the beavers is an “over reaction”, and the benefits they bring to the environment, far outweigh any negatives they may be culpable for.

During the meeting, which followed an afternoon drop-in event, local residents were informed of Defra’s plans to plot traps along the river, potentially from as far downstream as Budleigh Salterton and upstream as far as Honiton, this autumn.

The trust also informed the some 100 attendees that the process of trapping and testing is likely to be anything but swift, due to the complicated and invasive testing procedure and the risk that Defra could face a legal challenge to releasing the unlicensed animals back into the wild, meaning they could be in captivity far longer than planned.

Independent ward member for Ottery St Mary, Councillor Claire Wright, added: “The most important thing to remember is that beavers are a native species and they will live in harmony, and enhance, the natural environment and biodiversity.

“The chances of them having this disease is so remote, this is a completely over the top, irrational reaction.”

Hurray for the hardworking families of Devon who took time out of their Tuesday to support the first wild beavers in 500 years. And hurray to the media that was there to run the story. I hope it gets picked up by the bigger news feed soon, because there is no guarantee DEFRA will do the right thing.

But as of 10:30 last evening there is officially a slightly better chance. Good work!