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November 1, 2005

The Beavers Are Back!

One of my friends works as an ecologist in Britain, often helping relocate animals whose homes are threatened by development and such. I've recently taken to calling her the Badger Charmer.

In a story out of The Secret of NIMH, some badgers have made their home on some government land near Heathrow Airport, but the land was recently sold to a private developer. Now my friend the ecologist has the task of trying to charm the badgers into moving to a safer location. She constructs their new setts, coaxes them out of their old setts with hansel and gretel trails of peanuts covered in honey. Then she fences in their old sett off and put badger gates on so they can come out but not go back in... Afterwards the team opens up the old sett to learn more about them and pass on their findings to future badger translocation projects.

But while badgers and hedgehogs are fairly common in England, beavers were hunted to extinction there many years ago. In fact, Canada became very important to both England and France in the late 1600s and early 1700s for its millions of beavers available for the fur-trade.

Now beavers are being reintroduced to England. Perhaps my friend will next become the Beaver Whisperer...

Beavers have been reintroduced to England, 500 years after they were hunted to extinction for their fur.

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If the pioneering scheme is successful, it is hoped beavers can once again thrive in the British countryside.

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This is the second attempt to re-introduce beavers to England - a previous attempt in 2001 in Kent ran into difficulties with the animals failing to breed.

More at: BBC: Beavers in 'wild' after centuries

Perhaps it's the cynic in me, but one of the reasons beavers were considered a fine re-introduction candidate is because they are unlikely to cause any problems for fishermen and others. The European beavers don't eat fish and that unlike some other beaver species, they don't cause a lot of damage to the trees by building huge dams. Instead, they feed on aquatic plants, grasses, ferns and shrubs, living in burrows along the river.

Posted by sorsha at November 1, 2005 7:42 PM