The sun was shining, people were gingerly paddling in the sea and dogs were being walked up and down the coast – a typical day on the beautiful Dorset coast. But the beachgoers probably didn’t know that just a few minutes inland, history was being made.
On Wednesday, at the National Trust’s Purbeck Heath nature reserve, four beavers were released from crates and crawled into Little Sea, a 33-hectare lake. They are the first beavers to be legally released in England, after 400 years of absence and a fight to return them to the landscape.
The trust says this is the perfect habitat for the creatures to roam free, with no fenced enclosures, because it is full of lakes and watercourses for the beavers to make their home. They have permission to release 25 on the peninsula but are starting with four and then making more releases in coming years if this one goes well.
“I feel real hope,” said David Brown, the National Trust’s nature director at Purbeck, shortly before the beavers were released. “I’ve worked as an ecologist for 40 years, and this is the most optimistic time in my career without a doubt. We are visibly, measurably recovering nature and that is so exciting, it is a real buzz. That hope is so precious.”
Until about 20 years ago, the rodent had been extinct in Britain for 400 years, having been hunted for their fur, meat and scent oil. But in recent years, beavers have been returning to our waterways via licensed releases into enclosures and some illegal releases. There are estimated to be about 500 living in the wild in England. Last week, the government announced that, with a licence, it is now legal for conservationists to release beavers into the wild, with no enclosures necessary.
Next, they hope to release the beavers they have in enclosures at the Holnicote Estate on Exmoor, as well as on the South Downs, and Wallington. Northumberland.
“The problem with enclosures is they are only really a short-term solution, as after a couple of years the kits the beavers have need to make their own territories, and there’s no space for them to go,” Brown said.
Conservationists have been campaigning for the return of the beaver for decades, because they are what is known as a keystone species whose presence allows other creatures including birds, fish and invertebrates, to thrive. This is because they create complex wetland habitats by digging channels and pools and constructing leaky dams. The dams they create also filter pollution, helping to clean up rivers, and they can prevent flooding as well as drought.
The beavers released on Wednesday were carefully transported in crates in the back of a van from the River Tay in Scotland, down to Dorset, by the Beaver Trust. They were on the road from 4am and arrived at Purbeck in the afternoon.
Gen Crisford, beaver project officer at Purbeck, said: “As the lake is already deep enough, they won’t need to build dams initially, but by creating glades within the willow woodland, new areas of open wetlands will form to benefit many of the reserve’s rare species including water voles, keeled skimmer dragonflies and tiny ‘bladderwort’ carnivorous plants.”
The trust has worked with local farmers and landowners to ensure the beavers do not cause unwanted disruption. If needed, they will dig holes under dammed areas called “beaver deceivers” to confuse the beavers and cause them to go and dam elsewhere.
Purbeck hopes it will lead to year-round nature tourism as people come to see the beavers and the habitat they create. “We have been seeing a shift away from bucket-and-spade tourism to nature tourism, and that is more sustainable,” Brown said.
The nature minister, Mary Creagh, was there to watch the release. She said: “I am thrilled that, after being hunted to extinction centuries ago, wild beavers are finally here to stay. Today is an important milestone for national nature recovery.”
More beaver releases are expected to occur in the coming months. Other nature groups, including the Wildlife Trusts, have submitted plans to the government in the hope of being granted a licence. The Wildlife Trusts have sites in Devon and Cornwall where they hope to release beavers, and the Knepp Estate in Sussex has four kits it wants to release.
