save the beaver

UPDATE!!! The Campaign is ON!
The Free Beavers of Devon
A decision has been made at the most senior levels of DEFRA, probably a ministerial decision to remove the free beavers living on the river Otter in Devon.
Officials from the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency AHVLA- Defra have been instructed to find out how to do this and if possible rehome the beavers in a Zoo, but possibly kill them if not.
This was partly confirmed by communications of wildlife groups with DEFRA officials and in a statement by George Eustice (The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
“We intend to recapture and rehome the wild beavers in Devon and are currently working out plans for the best way to do so. All decisions will be made with the welfare of the beavers in mind. There are no plans to cull beavers.”
Where did the beavers come from?
There are at least 3 groups of beavers in Devon legally held, it is thought escapes over the past 6 years has led to this population expanding. Authorities have known about this for some time. Only recent media attention & pressure from groups opposed to beaver reintroduction has spurred government ministers to take action.
Who wants to get rid of the beavers?
The political force is coming from Conservative ministers with pressure from the Angling Trust & some other groups who fear beaver’s impact on land & lifestyle.
Why:
Some groups are scared beavers will change rivers and supress fishing – the best scientific evidence clearly shows this is wrong and beavers enhance fish stocks and make rivers better for wildlife
Beavers in the rest of the UK:
There are probably 300 beavers living wild in the UK in over 10 populations, mostly in Scotland, but a few in places in England and wales.
How can we stop this?
The decision is made and attempts to trap the beavers are only a few weeks away –
1. Sign the petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-the-free-beavers-of-england
2. write to your MP and tell them to stop
3. Write to the Government minister involved, Lord DeMauley: demauley@parliament.uk
What are the ‘Save the Free Beavers of England’ group doing?’
A broad alliance of wildlife groups led by the Charities: Devon Wildlife Trust & Wildwood Trust are campaigning for a change in policy to test the beavers to ensure they have no parasites and to monitor and mitigate any affects the beavers have to local landowners and river users. This has been rejected by DEFRA at the behest of ministers. Many DEFRA officials and wildlife experts believe that monitoring is the best policy. Where Trapping has been carried out in Scotland it led to the death of a young beaver.
At present we are:
1. Contacting local landowners and ask them to refuse permission for DEFRA officials coming on to their land, which they have the legal right to do.
2. Promote the case that testing and monitoring is the best course of action
3. Contacting zoos and animals parks to refuse DEFRA’s request to rehome the beavers, as the conditions will cause great stress to the beavers and caused the death of a young beaver when tried in Scotland.
4. Set up a team to monitor DEFRA officials to ensure they do not break the law or act in a way that will hurt the beavers’ welfare
5. Mount a legal challenge to this process.
A. Breach of Habitats Directive: There is a very good chance the UK is in breach or the Habitats Directive, beavers are a European Protected Species, in the way they have treated beavers, not recognized that beavers have re-colonised the UK in the last 15 years and not put in a proper licensing and monitoring system.
B. Animal welfare grounds – private prosecutions of individuals for any harm they bring to the beaver
C. Judicial Review of the Governments actions in this decision



I have.nt seen any think about this,

I havn't seen anything about it since the original St.George de Monbiot article on which is seems to be based.
https://t-a-c.forumotion.com/t3179-monbiot-on-beavers

I don't know much about the pros and cons of beavers either.  Beavers on the river Otter...  
I imagine most of the issues are similar to reintroduction of otters plus increased flood risks, yes they were indigenous to Britain but re-introducing years later is bound to have complex repercussions.  On the other hand it would be great so see some.

Maybe the hydropower developers could then put archimedes screws on the beaver dams.

I unsubscribed from 38degrees recently after getting fed up with their patronising rhetoric, often with no factual back-up links or easy way to verify what they claim, and no indication of who is behind each campaign.  I came to the opinion that most of their campaigns are actually a left-wing plot!  

Update, found these:
- For: http://www.countryfile.com/news/beavers-pro
- Against: http://www.countryfile.com/news/beaver-anti

Campsite in France a few years ago near the bridge at Millau on the river Tarn we pitched the Tent near the river had a few beers as you do and then started to wonder why so many gnawed off tree stumps were around us ....found out later as another birch bit the dust a couple of hundred metres away from our pitch...fair puts the willys up you thinking you may get squished by a tree as you sleep....never actually saw one in our stay there but plenty of there handiwork on show steve

Long time since ive seen a beaver.......  

Paul Pittman wrote:

Long time since ive seen a beaver.......  

join the club   

02.07.14
The Angling Trust has welcomed Defra’s commitment to capture and return to captivity a number of beavers which have escaped from captivity – or have possibly been illegally released – into the River Otter in Devon.
http://www.anglingtrust.net/news.asp?section=29&itemid=2189

Ed Randall wrote:

02.07.14
The Angling Trust has welcomed Defra’s commitment to capture and return to captivity a number of beavers which have escaped from captivity – or have possibly been illegally released – into the River Otter in Devon.
http://www.anglingtrust.net/news.asp?section=29&itemid=2189

There is a serious point here. In the West Country there seems to be a wider problem of animal rights activists and radical environmentalists deciding they know better than everyone else and taking direct action, i.e. releasing animals into the wild.

My parents live near the River Axe in Devon/Dorset, unfortunately some animal rights types decided to raid a mink farm a few years back and released all of the mink into the Axe. Within a year there was literally no fish left. They had to reintroduce stocked brown trout but there are no longer coarse fish in there except minnows.

It would be great if beavers were introduced into stretches of some rivers but it needs to be properly managed, not botched by a couple of idiots who think animals are out of some Disney or Pixar film.

Fortunately fur is massively unfashionable nowadays, and fur farming was banned in the UK in 2000 in any case.
The wild mink go back further than the 1990s:
https://www.gwct.org.uk/wildlife/research/mammals/american-mink/mink-in-britain/

Ed Randall wrote:

Fortunately it's massively unfashionable nowadays, and it was banned in the UK in 2000 in any case.
The wild mink go back further than the 1990s:
https://www.gwct.org.uk/wildlife/research/mammals/american-mink/mink-in-britain/

The spread of american mink has been due to The  Animal Liberation Army in the early 1970,s raiding the Mink farms of Norfolk,and releasing them into the wild.The natural British beaver has been extinct in Britain since the 1700,s due to trapping and shooting.It was common wnen Britain was covered by Oak trees until Henry VIII deforested the Oak to build his fleet.
These so call clever people who want to reintroduce the Beaver are on the same wave lenght as the ALA,the landscape has changed and lessons should be learned from past mistakes.