Beavers to the Rescue?

Wild beavers could be brought in to stop flooding in the Forest of Dean

Beavers could make a return to the wilds of Gloucestershire for the first time in hund of years to help environmentalists stop a village flooding. The Forestry Commission are considering releasing the large toothed animals into a brook above Lydbrook in the Forest of Dean as part of efforts to protect the village which was badly flooded in 2012.

Trials have shown that beavers can create dams capable of retaining about 1,000 tonnes of water which would otherwise cascade down to villages like Lydbrook which runs along a natural valley leading down from the Forest of Dean to the River Wye.

As well as holding back water, the beavers are also said to increase biodiversity in woodland areas with some claiming their activities can help many rare species thrive.

Forestry Commission chiefs have invited expert Derek Gow to tell residents in Upper Lydbrook and Lydbrook how experts believe putting beavers into Greathough Brook in the Forest could help halt water gushing down the hillsides.

Mr Gow told the Financial Times: “For years, the whole idea of reintroducing beavers has been bogged down by myth and nonsense. It’s not as though we are looking at reintroducing a Tyrannosaurus rex that eats children. “People have the idea that because beavers have huge teeth they chop their way through forests like furry chainsaws, but they’re a creative, not a destructive, force.

“They open up the river banks to many other species: plants, butterflies, beetles, amphibians and fish. These are the building blocks of life, the species that support others.”

“Beavers have been managing water for millions of years; they’re adapted to do a far better job than us,” he said. “We can no longer pay to maintain flood walls and flood defences so beavers are a rational option when it comes to water management and flood control.”

There has been a proliferation of plants, butterflies, dragonflies, frogs birds and Devon Wildlife Trust say the only wild colony allowed in England has encouraged tourists to flock to the area to see them.

Newly elected Lydbrook councillor Sid Phelps supports the idea of putting beavers in the brook which runs down to Lydbrook and said: “They have not been wild in the UK for hundreds of years but I understand that they can support the ecology and wildlife of an area and are very effective at alleviating the fast flow of water which can lead to flash flooding.

“I’m not an expert on hydrology but I’m very interested to hear what the Forestry Commission have to say about what it would mean for Lydbrook.”

Residents have been invited to a meeting at Lydbrook Memorial Hall on March 9 2017 at 6.30pm. Officials at Forestry Commission declined to comment or give details of the scheme saying they wanted to talk to local residents and parish councillors first.

The paper is already  in your favor, Mr. Gow. I suspect the townspeople to be at least open-minded to your suggestions. I, of course, get nervous about promising beavers can slow down floods because, despite what the engineering report told Martinez a decade ago, dams aren’t concrete and they function best when helped by many many other dams dotted along the stream. Which reintroduced beavers won’t have after 500 years. They still washout and need to be rebuilt after the water settles. Which could all take enough time to inconvenience a homeowner.

(In fact one of the talks I eavesdropped on at the conference was by Vanessa Petro from Oregon State University talking about their research on beaver relocations. She observed that “beaver dams were ephemeral” and in dynamic areas like Oregon were shown only to last around 2 years.)

Hmmm 2 years? Alhambra Creek is a pretty flashy stream, and our own primary dam washed out frequently but was rebuilt religiously for 6 years. The secondary dam (which became the primary) was rebuilt for 8 years. I wouldn’t classify either of them as ephemeral.  I asked Vanessa whether her study addressed the washout and rebuild of dams, or just classified all washed dams as ‘ephemeral’.  She said that their data did not cover the history of the dam or its destruction and rebuild, which is what I suspected.

Beaver dams are ‘ephemeral’ in the same way that mowing lawns is ephemeral. The work done has to be repeated over and over for long term effect.

Which still is no guarantee that rebuilt dams will necessarily prevent flooding. But, (to quote the famous-chicken-soup offering-Jewish-mother) “It can’t hurt“. I wish Derek every luck at his upcoming talk, and am so sorry I had to miss him this year.  In the end, it’s kind of like cleaning your room because you are looking for a misplaced 20. There’s no guarantee you’ll find the missing cash, but I really don’t think there’s a bad reason to clean your room or re-introduce beavers.