The official Scottish Beaver trial has been very happy to announce that this year they have observed 5 new beavers in their pond! If the trial is “can beavers thrive in Scotland” I’d say they have their answer. If the trial is “can humans possibly tolerate how well they thrive?” the answer is more iffy.
New born beavers pictured at trial site aimed at bringing the animal back to the UK
NEWLY born beavers have been spotted at the site of a five-year trial aiming to reintroduce the mammal into the UK. The five youngsters or “kits” have been spotted at the Scottish beaver trial site at Knapdale in Argyll, the only licensed reintroduction scheme for beavers – and the first attempt to reintroduce an extinct mammal – in the UK.
Their appearance means beavers have bred every year since the trial started with the arrival of animals from Norway to Knapdale in 2009, the managers of the scheme said. Eurasian beavers were once native to the UK but were wiped out by hunting by the 16th century.
Roisin Campbell-Palmer, field operations manager for the trial, said: “The arrival of new kits means that the beavers have bred every year of the Scottish beaver trial.
“We are now attempting to establish how many there are in total – but five have been observed so far.”
The appearance of the beaver kits was welcomed as a boost for tourism as well as for the trial. Visitors to Knapdale can go on evening guided tours for a chance to spot the mammals on Dubh Loch, home to one of the project’s four beaver families.
The trial’s project manager, Simon Jones, said the sighting of the kits was “great news for the Scottish beaver trial – and for local tourism as more people will want to travel to Argyll to come on our guided walks for a chance to see the new arrivals”.
Five blessed events so far! I’m so jealous. We never got five. (Except an uncomfirmed 5th kit that was found dead in 2007. Never was sure if the report was accurate or not, but she swore she saw the tail and I counted four kits that night, so who knows?) The good news is that Argyll is going in the right direction. This formal trial is acting like a kind of cow-pusher on a the beaver-train and clearing out all the fears and objections that would be hurled at the much larger free beaver population along the Tay and beyond. Good!
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I heard from Michael Callahan that he was heading to Sonomish WA (home of retired watershed steward Jake Jacobsen who is practically a founding father of beavers and helped tremendously with our early questions in Martinez) to install some special flow device adaptions for fish passage. I passed this news along to our Beaver Believer documentary friends and they were excited about the idea of connecting with Mike and including him in the film, which I’m very happy about because even if beavers help climate change, or save salmon, or rotate your tires, no one will ever let them stick around unless human interests can be protected. We want solutions to be visible and obvious. On an even better note, a little bird told me that one of the good folk at OAEC will be heading out to Massachusetts in October to learn installation, which going to be excellent news for California!
Before you ask why, I will just say that I got an email yesterday from Canada from a farmer who had been trapping the beavers on his land and recently saw the documentary “The Beaver Whisperers” and was stunned to learn that beavers could be effectively managed by Michel LeClair and how could he go about doing that on his land? Of course I sent him info on Mike’s DVD and Sherri’s book and forwarded his email to Jari Osborne, the filmmaker, who had what I imagine is the best day ever thinking that she had made such a dramatic difference in peoples thinking.
What can I say, I’m have no actual skills or training, but I have had the strange fortune of becoming a kind of beaver hub. Which beavers apparently need.
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Now for some very good news. The grown-up in charge of these excellent workers is Kimberly Robertson, who lives on site at Safari West in Santa Rosa and is the official animal registrar and manages the Jr. Keeper program. She was very excited about our festival and has already made plans to attend next year. We got to talking about the beavers and getting kids interested in wildlife and she said she would like to be involved with Worth A Dam. Of course we would like that very much. So welcome to our new board member! I just know that our two organizations will benefit each other. Teaching kids to love what’s wild and free around them requires many voices, from the exotic to what’s right in their own back yard. Welcome aboard!
