It was a genuinely tense tale of the riverbank as a family of four beavers were released into the Northumberland countryside on Wednesday, the first time in more than 400 years that the animals are making the county their home.
Would they even come out of their cages? Would they be as feisty coming out as they apparently were going in? Would they be happy with their new surroundings?
The mother and two kits could not have been more relaxed. It was the dad who fluffed his lines – emerging into the light, he seemed to look up at a bank full of silent volunteers and journalists and think “no chance”. He darted back into his cage, emerged and then went in another cage. Minutes passed before he finally followed the script to join his family.
“That was really emotional,” said Paul Hewitt, countryside manager of the National Trust, which was carrying out its third beaver release. “I did not think I would be that emotional but it was incredible.
“I think I was expecting them to be really quick and want to escape, but actually they were really chilled.”
The beavers, which were held at Five Sisters Zoo for health screening after arriving from the River Tay catchment in Scotland, were released into a tributary of the River Wansbeck on the National Trust’s Wallington estate in Northumberland. It follows successful releases on Exmoor in 2020 and the South Downs in 2021.
Beavers were once a mainstay of British rivers but were hunted for their fur, meat and scent glands to extinction in the 16th century.
The Wallington beavers, in a 24-hectare fenced enclosure, become one of very few beaver populations in northern England, and everyone expects them instinctively to begin engineering and improving the landscape.
National Trust rangers attempted to give them a head start by laying willow branches over the stream and putting down hay. It seemed to work. “We could hear them chewing so they were eating within a few minutes, which is just extraordinary,” said Hewitt.
Róisín Campbell-Palmer, head of restoration at the Beaver Trust, agreed it was a successful release. “This is the bit we always look forward to. There’s always a lot of work and sometimes stress to get animals to this point but opening the crates and letting them swim away … that’s why we do what we do.
“Our aim is to see beavers back in our landscape all over Britain.”
Supporters say beaver releases are making a genuine difference to the countryside, by boosting wildlife and helping to increase the landscape’s resilience to the climate crisis.
Hewitt said it had been a huge learning process for him. “There is so much I didn’t know about beavers,” he said. “They coppice better than we do, they build ponds better than we do … they are incredible.”
At Wallington, the trust hopes the beavers will start creating dams and ponds that will, over time, become a wetland brimming with life. Where beavers go, “fish, insects, birds and amphibians follow”, said Hewitt.
The Northumberland project has been funded by the Reece Foundation, a north-east England charity.
The plan now is to let the beavers settle, and the trust is asking people to not visit them. Once settled, rangers hope to provide managed public access to their enclosure.
• This article was amended on 13 July 2023 to add that the beavers had been held at a zoo for health screening before being released into a river.
