Badenoch and Strathspey beavering away for return of a lost species
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Why haven’t we had any beavers in the strath for 400 years?
At this week’s first new ‘Beaver blether’ in Kincraig, it was the first question the Strathy asked the experts who want to reintroduce the creature second only to us in its ability to manipulate its environment.
Was that the reason we killed them all? Could it therefore be the reason we would just kill them all again?
“No,” said beaver team communications manager Elliot McCandless. “The last thing we wanted to do was lose beavers.
“They were so useful, for their wonderful waterproof pelts, their meat and their medicinal qualities.”
It transpires that the castoreum produced by the acids ingested in eating trees had medicinal qualities comparable to aspirin, among countless other useful things such as its vanilla-flavour.
The list of uses is limitless. It transpires we simply used beavers to death, rather than eradicating them for eating our trees and changing our water courses.
The message at the community hall on Thursday seemed very clear: bringing beavers back now would be very unlikely to prompt another man-made extinction.
“Our world is very different now,” explained Cairngorms National Park ranger Duncan Macdonald.
“We make our own fur for clothing, we produce our own medicines...”
And of course we farm plenty of meat without a beaver in sight.
As for all those wetlands beavers create, the Cairngorm National Park Authority’s beaver project manager Jonathan Willet explained that they were precisely what was needed to reproduce habitats for so many species which we all rely on.
“The creation of wetland behind a dam provides new habitat for a diverse range of plant and invertebrate species,” he said.
“This is turn provides opportunities for a range of birds, bats, mammals and amphibians.
“By impounding water and slowly releasing it beaver dams reduce the risk of flooding downstream, drought and may even prevent the spread of wildfire.”
The message was spread to a good few who turned out on Thursday to meet a selection of experts all with their own role in the great restoration project.
The CNPA is working closely with a range of partners and land managers on the long-considered proposal to translocate beavers from the Tay catchment to the Upper Spey.
They are all working on the final submission – soon now, after a series of blethers across the strath aimed at anglers, farmers, businesses and the general public – of a formal licence application to NatureScot.
There are agreed release sites proposed for Rothiemurchus, Wildland Cairngorms and RSPB Scotland Insh Marshes.
The engagement process runs until September 25.
The blethers carry on next week (August 30) in the Duke of Gordon Hotel, Kingussie, for the agriculture sector and public.
Aviemore businesses meet on September 7 in the Inverdruie House Tipi, and the public on September 13 in the Grant Arms Hotel, Grantown. More details at https://cairngorms.co.uk/caring-future/cairngorms-nature/priority-species/beaver/
