Scotland's beaver-trapping plan has wildlife campaigners up in arms

[Angus Og]

Dont know if anyone has seen this .
Bureaucracy at its best

An urgent campaign has been launched to capture up to 20 beavers that have colonised rivers and lochs and are freely breeding in the wild.

The unpublicised project has been authorised by Scottish Natural Heritage, the government wildlife body, after it emerged that a large number of beavers had taken root following a series of escapes from private collections in Angus and Perthshire over the past decade.

Some wildlife experts believe that more than 50 beavers could be roaming free: families of beavers, and evidence of their lodge building, have been regularly seen by villagers and naturalists around Invergowrie on the outskirts of Dundee, Forfar in Angus, Glamis in Perthshire, and Tentsmuir near the mouth of the river Tay.

The animals will be trapped and given to the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, which houses beavers at its Highland wildlife park and is closely involved with the UK's only official beaver reintroduction scheme at Knapdale forest in Mid-Argyll.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...d-conservation

[Shambling Shaman]

Nope missed that......

[Shewie]

If they're taking them up to Knapdale then I don't mind so much. It'll give me a better chance of actually seeing one next time I'm up anyway

[robin wood]

Very interesting and thought provoking situation. On the one hand 59% of people voting for reintroduction and money spent on release scheme. On the other hand escaped beavers getting on quite nicely on their own but in a place where there has not been consultation with local landowners who I suspect are amongst the 41% who are not for reintroduction. I see it as a difficult situation to deal with rather than bureaucracy gone mad.

[Graham_S]

I know where the ones in Tentsmuir are, but I'm not telling...
They're never there when I have my camera though.
I swear they've got lookouts...

[gsfgaz]

I know where the ones in Tentsmuir are, but I'm not telling...
They're never there when I have my camera though.
I swear they've got lookouts...

keep it to your self mate,,,
mon the beavers

[Toddy]

You know all that soggy woodland along to Laighlands.....from Baron's Haugh down past the mausoleum? Why can they no' live there? It's a huge great reserve for the birds anyway. The herons come and perch on our roof and eye up my neighbours gold fish
It's full of fast growing birch and willow, surely that would feed them ?

cheers,
Toddy

[Tengu]

Remember N American Beaver and OUR beaver cannot interbreed.

Just what sort of beaver are they?

[Toddy]

I thought they were Scandinavian ones

cheers,
M

[silvergirl]

There's been a group of Beavers living not too far from me for quite a while. I keep meaning to go for a paddle to see them.
The local landowner (or more fishing interests) did kick up a fuss a few years ago complaining that they would eat all the fish completely missing the point that they are veggie!

[mace242]

I wonder if this isn't for the best in the short term. We don't have a predator to keep their numbers in check and who knows what possible damage they may cause? How do they get on in other countries where they are not predated or hunted? Whilst I'd love to see one in the wild, and have in France, some caution is nedded I expect....

[gregorach]

The local landowner (or more fishing interests) did kick up a fuss a few years ago complaining that they would eat all the fish completely missing the point that they are veggie!

Oh, for pity's sake! It's stuff like this that makes me sceptical of the claim that the fishing and shooting set understand the countryside better than other people. If anything, beaver should improve the fishing, as the habitat they create is ideal for small fish.

[Bushwhacker]

Beaver dams prevent the migration of trout and salmon.

[Toddy]

How ? the salmon thrived while we still had beavers in this country. Old stories talk about being able to walk dry shod across the Clyde on the backs of the fish.
The fish jump the 12 foot weir down near us....or do you mean the wee ones ? iirc beaver dams create consistant water levels, but they flood too and there are overflow points.

Genuinely curious since the beavers were part of the indigenous fauna of these islands....says she who excavated what was purported to be a mesolithic hurdle structure (now that would have been somehting rather special) that turned out to be an 8,000 year old beaver dam

cheers,
M

[gregorach]

Beaver dams prevent the migration of trout and salmon.

Then how did those fish evolve in an environment with beavers in the first place? A quick skim of the top Google scholar results also seems to back me up: the creation of ponds and slow-water streams is generally beneficial to most fish species, although there may be some specific cases where migration routes are disrupted. In particular, The general ecology of beavers (Castor spp.), as related to their influence on stream ecosystems and riparian habitats, and the subsequent effects on fish – a review [P. Collen and R.J. Gibson, Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries Volume 10, Number 4, 439-461, DOI: 10.1023/A:1012262217012] may be of interest:

Summary of the possible consequences to fish of beaver activities

Positive effects
• Habitat is created for larger fish, providing angling opportunities (salmonids in cold water streams, centrarchids and some esocids in warm water streams).
• The debris cover provided by the lodge and the food cache can attract some fish species (e.g., salmonids, percids, centrarchids).
• Hydrological effects are stabilised, so that bed scouring and bank erosion are decreased. More stable stream flows are beneficial to invertebrate and fish production.
• Water temperature stabilisation and warming could increase production in cold water streams.
• In streams with high sediment loads, sediment will be trapped in the impoundment.
• Coarse, particulate and dissolved organic matter is increased in the pond, providing food for invertebrates, through fungal and microbial pathways.
• Nutrients may be generated (N, P), increasing he fertility of the pond and downstream stretches.
• Acidity may be reduced, and Al may be immobilised.
• The dam collects organic detritus, and provides a substrate for lotic type invertebrates, providing food for fish downstream.
• Refugia can be provided in the pond at certain times.

Negative effects
• Upstream migration may be impeded (larger dams; dams above culverts which were partial barriers).
• Warming of water temperatures may be detrimental in some marginal habitats for cold water fish.
• Spawning sites may be inundated and silted.
• The fish composition and interactions may change, so that less desired species for angling predominate.
• Habitat may be created for avian, mammalian or piscine predators, with negative effects on desired fish species.

[Bushwhacker]

Wouldn't it decrease the flow and oxygen levels further down stream?

[gregorach]

Wouldn't it decrease the flow and oxygen levels further down stream?

The total flow volume must remain the same, once the dams are filled - water can't pile up indefinitely. Not sure about downstream oxygenation, but I wouldn't assume that it's a problem without some evidence.

Remember, they were here for hundreds of thousands of years, and were only removed a couple of hundred years ago. The entire ecosystem is adapted to having them there.

[forestwalker]

I wonder if one could argue against them on greenhouse gas basis (Castorigenic Greenhouse Gas?). All the vegtable matter decomposing oin the bottom of the dams, producing methane... Still, it is complex, and landowner acceptance is part of what is needed these days.

[dwardo]

I am thinking,,, stew. Sorry just hungry

[Beagnoth]

Beavers are great managers. They actively create more wetland habitat. Though it is a fairpoint that more preasure on limited fragile niches such as spawning grounds may have a short term effect, in the longterm it is highly unlikely that beaver activity is detrimental.

This is a pretty crazy!

[T1Viper]

Beaver dams prevent the migration of trout and salmon.

Beavers are herbivores and pose no direct threat to fish stocks.

Positive impacts include the creation of new feeding pools and regulation of water flow, but beavers do not dam fast flowing or large rivers. Normally dams are built on small burns and streams. Dams can increase the production of invertebrate food (invertebrate biomass typically 2–5 times that of unmodified streams), provide drought refuge sites for fish and holding areas for migrating salmonids.

Changes to the fish population will vary according to the location of a dam, topography and local conditions. Beavers favour floodplain habitats as opposed to fast flowing high gradient streams suitable for spawning.

Won’t dams impede movement of fish?

The impact of beavers on fish migration depends on the conditions on site. Most available reports consider dams to be insufficient to inhibit migration during periods of high flow, but some migration may be impeded in low flow conditions, with the impediment being removed when flow increases. There is little evidence from Europe and North America to indicate significant detrimental impacts of beaver on salmonid fish.

In Norway, beavers are not perceived as a problem on salmon rivers and the only, albeit limited, research work available indicates that salmon can successfully spawn upstream of beaver dams. Moreover, as trial animals will be monitored closely, any animals straying beyond the agreed boundaries of the trial site will be rapidly returned.

Source