Over the past 12 months, Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust has been running a joint study with Forestry England to determine the feasibility of reintroducing beavers, a keystone species, to the wild.
The hope is that beavers would restore natural processes such as tree coppicing and pond creation, lost in their absence, that could provide multiple benefits for nature and biodiversity while reducing flood risk downstream.
Beaver wetlands are capable of storing hundreds of thousands of litres of water.
Beavers lived in Britain for 2 million years before they were hunted to extinction about 400 years ago. In the Forest of Dean, Forestry England have reintroduced them in several enclosures, helping reduce flood risk for people in Lydbrook.
Wild populations of beavers are well-established in some smaller river catchments in the South-West of England. These populations are spreading and beavers have been seen very close to Gloucestershire’s borders.
Now there is the real possibility that they could establish themselves within the county. The feasibility study is assessing the potential benefits and risks that could occur if this were to happen.
While beavers can have a positive effect on the environment, pressures on modern land use mean that there could also be negative impacts. It is possible that, in some places, beaver activity would affect existing land and infrastructure negatively and, as a result, would need to be managed.
Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust have released a public opinion survey to understand local perceptions about the possible reintroduction of beavers into the wild.
It will run from Tuesday 6 November 2024 to Monday 6 January 2025 and you are encouraged to take part by completing the questionnaire at https://www.gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk/beaver-feasibility-survey .
Further information can be found on The Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust website at www.gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk .
Elsewhere on our website, you can watch a film of a talk, given in October 2023, about the lives of beavers. https://www.wottonareacan.org/post/wotton-s-waterways-part-2-of-2-oct-23