RE-INTRODUCTION
OF BEAVERS (Castor fibor) TO UK
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A
single beaver recently escaped from captivity and damaged an apple orchard in
Alyth in Scotland and another was shot near Perth after felling trees into a
fishing loch now a further escape has been reported into the Tay river system.
My first-hand experience on a recent visit to
Latvia
may help people decide whether or not beavers should be re-introduced into Scotland
as has been suggested. I took part
in a trip to investigate wildlife management techniques in Latvia
which was organised by ARCH network and funded by The Leonardo da Vinci
Initiative of the European Union.
Beavers became extinct in
Latvia
around 1870 primarily due to over-hunting for their meat, fur and castoreum (a
product from their glands used in perfumery and medicine). Between 1927-1952
twelve European beavers were re-introduced to Latvia from Norway, Sweden and
elsewhere and some immigrated naturally. The Latvian beaver population is now
officially put at 66,886 animals but informed estimates suggest it has actually
risen to well over 100,000. Beavers mainly eat the bark of deciduous trees and
other ground vegetation close to rivers but they will occasionally fell pines.
Farming in Latvia
is largely extensive and pastoral and with 47% of the country afforested quite
a lot of tree damage can be sustained before foresters complain.
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However the
management of the re-introduced population was not started until 1980 when
beavers were put back onto the hunting list. Each year the State Forestry
Service (which co-ordinates all hunting in Latvia) issues a quota to the 1000+
hunting clubs and the hunting clubs send back consolidated cull totals at the
end of the season. Currently the
beaver cull is running at about 9860 (say 10% of the population) whereas the
animal’s ecology suggests that a cull of more than 20% is needed just to
stabilise the population and more than 30% to reduce it. So despite predation by
large carnivores like wolves and lynx and hunting by man, beavers are now out of
control in Latvia – is that a good or bad thing?
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Some Latvian conservation organisations welcome the beavers because they dam up
ditches and streams and so maintain the water levels in wetlands and encourage
the development of ecologically valuable raised bogs. Most hunters obviously
welcome beavers not only as a hunting quarry but because their dams also create
attractive flight ponds for waterfowl.
But foresters and others are not so happy. Latvia
is a very flat country and the beavers carry out their dam-building activities
enthusiastically often in remote areas far from hunting pressure. By blocking
the drainage systems, they can flood large areas of native forest which kills
the trees particularly pine. Beavers also undermine river banks by burrowing and
so cause erosion and flooding. While salmon fishing is not a big industry in
Latvia, beaver dams block headwater feeder streams and cause silting-up of fish
spawning beds.
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Latvia
’s State Forest Company does not pay for rangers to control animal species as
our Forestry Commission does in
UK
.After the annual hunting quota is set, the shooting is entirely left up to the
hunting clubs and individual members. This works well for large carnivores, deer
and wild boar so why beavers are not better controlled? Firstly they are mainly
nocturnal and are difficult to shoot unless on dry land out of the water. EU law
also forbids the use of night shooting with a spotlight and no exemption or
derogation has been granted to this bureaucratic restriction. Finally there is
little financial or other incentive for hunters to go out of their way to kill a
large number of beavers. The hunting is not very exciting; their fur has gone
out of fashion and their meat and castoreum are not as popular as they were
before the introduction of fast food and modern scents and medicines.
In my view, the answer is clear – beavers would only be acceptable in Scotland
in controlled numbers provided they stayed in the right places. When they
reproduced and spread (as they surely would), they would pose problems which
would be very hard to control. For once Scottish Natural Heritage appears to
have done the right thing when its original decision to release beavers onto the
Kintyre peninsular was rescinded. It is sad that someone who should have known
better chose to ignore their example and allowed his beavers to escape. The
apple trees which were destroyed are a small price to pay for confirmation of
the folly of introducing any exotic species to
UK
even if it was present here many hundreds of years ago.
©
Hugh Rose 2008