A few beavers would do the bog 'rewetting' job for free

COUNTRYFILE

I HAVE news from a friend in a secret part of the United Kingdom.

Ha! I hear you say – there are no secret parts left over there, surely.

The place is jam-packed with people and the places where people don't actually live are trampled underfoot by legions of country lovers making the most of their evenings and weekends.

And it's true – Britain is, for the most part, overpopulated. But there are still places where hardly anybody ever goes, and in one of these something exciting is taking place.

It is possible you may have heard of the movement toward reinstating European beavers into locations where they once lived.

It seems these funny looking animals were widespread in the UK nearly forever, until hunting pressure and, possibly, habitat destruction wiped them off the map.

Then in 2001 a family of up to 200 beavers were discovered living on the River Tay in Scotland. Nobody seemed to know where they had come from or how long they had been there.

But wasn't that grand? Somebody obviously had the foresight to proactively smuggle a few of these large rodents into the hills and set them free.

Over the last 20 years more beavers have been discovered in a handful of locations across the UK.

Most of these didn't actually need to be 'discovered', for they are part of scientific studies that are taking place to see how the greatly eroded environment can be helped to recover by having them running wild. As such, these beavers are kept in enclosures and closely monitored.

Well, most of them are. News has come to me of a very interesting private reintroduction in an especially remote woodland. Only a few animals are involved, but it seems they are thriving.

And if there is one landowner ready to take such action without doing all the paperwork, you can be sure there are more.

Before we know it, beavers will be as widespread throughout the UK as they were 500 years ago, and wouldn't that be a fine thing.

Reaching sizes of up to a metre and a half in length and weighing up to 50 pounds, these members of the rodent family are nothing like your average hamster. They are capable of felling large trees, using their long, sharp incisors to cut through the wood.

More, this is what they like to do. They would spend all day doing it if they could.

Once their tree is on the ground they shear off the branches and drag them into the water to form 'dams'.

These beaver dams have the effect of slowing down the flow of water and alleviating downstream flooding after periods of heavy rainfall. Doesn't that sound like something we could do with in this country?

When mature trees are felled light is allowed to penetrate to the forest floor, which leads to an increase in flowering plants.

This, in turn, benefits the insects that depend on the plants, and an increase in insects brings obvious advantage to birdlife and bats.

All in all, it seems that beavers are good for the environment.

We are at a point where the bogs we have been tearing apart for decades are to be restored. 'Rewetting' is the term used.

Left to humans, rewetting is an expensive and time consuming business.

A few beavers would have the job done for free. They would work faster and more efficiently than a fleet of JCBs, without the collateral damage these would cause.

There is only one problem. Beavers are not proven native to this country, so any attempt to introduce them would be opposed by the powers that be.