The first time I laid eyes on a beaver was a couple of years ago on the Devon farm of Derek Gow, the farmer turned rewilder, who brought the furry rodents back to the UK 30 years ago.
It was magical. Sitting in the June dusk, the pink-and-purple sky was reflected in the still ponds of the beaver habitat. Suddenly, ripples emerged from the lodge and the head of a kit – a baby beaver – popped up from underwater.
Watching this fascinating, and very cute, creature collect willow branches in its mouth was a heart-stopping moment; it felt like peeking into a secret world.
This scene will, I hope, now become common across England, after the government announced on Friday that beavers can be legally released into the wild for the first time. The rodents were a common feature of our rivers until about 400 years ago, when they were hunted to extinction for their pelts and an oil they secrete.
So this is a return of a creature that belongs here, and that we cruelly extinguished from our landscape. But it’s a much more important moment than that. We have royally screwed up our rivers over the centuries, straightening them, divorcing them from flood plains and destroying the surrounding habitats. This causes increased flooding and makes it more difficult for nature to thrive. Beavers can heal this; they are known as “keystone species”, which means their presence creates habitats for myriad other creatures, including fish, amphibians and insects.
The habitats I’ve visited have been thronging with life, with clouds of dragonflies in the air and tiny froglets hopping around my feet. Why? Because beavers dig ponds and create complex wetland habitats around rivers. Studies have found that fish in beaver habitats are larger and more numerous and that the presence of beavers rapidly increases biodiversity.
The UK is one of the most nature depleted places in the world and beavers can help fix this – for free. There has been a fierce debate about the reintroduction of beavers in England; it has even become a story line on The Archers. While some Ambridge residents have been lobbying for the return of the rodents, David Archer fears they will bring harm to his farm.
It is true that there are those that don’t want them back in the landscape. Fair enough in some cases, as the rodents can fell trees. You can spot the telltale signs that you’re entering the world of the beaver by the nibbled boughs and discarded, half-munched willow branches. But farmers I have spoken to have managed to avert this with a cheap and easy solution of wrapping chicken wire around tree trunks at beaver height. The creatures don’t like getting the metal caught between their teeth. Others fear the rodents will cause their land to flood, which is also a legitimate concern. In other European countries where they roam free, governments provide services where troublesome beavers are removed and placed somewhere more appropriate. This is likely to be the case here, too.
So concerns about beavers in our nature-denuded landscape are understandable. We have wiped out so many of our native species that most of us have not encountered a wild mammal larger than a squirrel. But I believe the worries are largely unfounded, particularly if beaver releases are monitored and managed properly.
Beavers alleviate flooding. Their dams are leaky, which means rivers flow much more steadily, and rainwater isn’t dumped all at once into towns and villages. It moves at a much slower pace through a beaver system than an artificially straightened river.
The beavers on the River Otter in Devon – one of our free-living populations – have managed to stop the village downstream from flooding. As changes in climate brings heavier rainfall, their flood reduction services will prove invaluable. In the Czech Republic, the government planned a flood prevention scheme involving a dam. But the beavers got there first, building their dam in the exact location planned by officials, and thus saving taxpayers £1m.
Beavers also help reduce the impact of drought. In the dry summer of 2022, when farmers were struggling to grow grass for livestock and plant crops, a lucky few in Devon and Cornwall, where there are beavers, did not face the same problems. Drone footage shows parched, beaver-less land next to lush, green, beaver habitats. How? Because the ponds they dig hold water in the landscape, water that can then be used when rain is scarce. We are likely to have more frequent droughts due to climate breakdown, so beavers will be able to help prevent the worst effects of these.
Currently, England’s beavers are mostly in enclosures, where they have been released by conservationists who have been observing the impact they have in a few constrained acres. Some, which have either escaped from these enclosures or been released by guerrilla rewilders, are living wild on rivers mostly in the south.
This moment has been decades in the making. Ever since Gow and his fellow rewilders concocted their plan in the 90s, the momentum has built. Successive environment departments have tried to legalise the release of beavers, but have been blocked because of fears it will upset farmers and certain wealthy landowners. Almost every year, conservationists have been told it is almost time to tear down the fences of enclosures and set beavers loose to fix our rivers, only to be informed the scheme has once again been delayed.
Some frustrated conservationists have taken the law into their own hands, driving around the country with beavers in the back of a van, conducting “beaver bombings”, where, unauthorised, they release a pair at a river and drive off again. It is faintly absurd that normally law-abiding nature lovers have felt forced to conduct clandestine beaver operations.
But this won’t be necessary any longer. These industrious rodents will, in the coming weeks, be living free all over the country, with the first expected to be released by the National Trust at Purbeck Heaths in Dorset. I urge you to go and visit, so you too can experience the magic of watching wild beavers.
• Helena Horton is an environment reporter for the Guardian
