Beavers are well and truly back in the wild in Scotland. Following the success of the Scottish Beaver Trial (2009-2014), in which the Scottish Wildlife Trust was a lead partner, both the Knapdale beavers and the (originally unauthorised) population of beavers in Tayside were given leave to remain and allowed to expand their range naturally. The population has been expanding gradually, primarily out of Tayside, and it is now estimated that there are around 1,500 beavers living in the wild in Scotland.

The beaver’s unique ability to engineer their surroundings to create an area of sufficient water depth to allow them take cover from predators, store food for winter and move building materials around with ease, has the knock-on effect of creating diverse wetland habitat mosaics which can support a great many other species. Furthermore, by increasing the water storage capacity of the landscape, beavers can help to improve the resilience of our land to adverse climate impacts like drought and flooding.

The expansion of beavers to suitable habitat across Scotland has the potential to provide a cost-effective nature-based solution to the twin climate and biodiversity crises in Scotland. This is particularly important now given that nature recovery and climate change adaptation are high on the national agenda, but disappointingly the budget available to actualise these goals is insufficient. Prioritising the success of beaver reintroduction to Scotland will bring several benefits that should appeal to the Scottish Government.

However, not everyone would agree that having these industrious rodents back in our landscape is good news. Much of Scotland’s fertile farmland would have at one time been floodplain and is only now cultivatable due to the land being drained and the flow of rivers altered. The beaver’s natural behaviour will undo these modifications and restore natural river flow and floodplain connectivity. While this would be highly beneficial for nature and the biodiversity of these areas, farmers and some landowners are concerned.

Flooding and burrowing by beavers can lead to losses in crop yields, and this has been the major reason for 360 beavers (one-quarter of the current population estimate) having been lethally controlled under licence since the species was given protected species status in 2019.

However, the threat of small-scale, localised flooding resulting from beaver activity pales in comparison to the very real threat posed to the agricultural sector by the types of extreme weather events that we are seeing more often in Scotland as a result of climate change. Storm Babet in October 2023, for example, left tens of thousands of acres of Scottish farmland under water.

There is a growing body of evidence for the effectiveness of natural floodplain management as a measure to prevent extreme flooding, as well as bringing other socio-economic benefits such as increased property prices and enhanced tourism opportunities. By making space for the natural flow of rivers and wetlands, setting aside areas of land to be allowed to flood, and re-vegetating riparian buffer zones, we can restore the water storage capacity of the landscape and reduce the severity of flooding during extreme events. Beavers can both benefit from and form an intrinsic part of re-naturalised river systems. By moving intensive land management back from the watercourse, we can make space for beavers with much less chance of conflict.

In many cases the issues that land managers experience with beavers can be resolved using mitigation measures such as the use of tree guards and deterrent paint to stop beavers felling trees, as well as the installation of flow devices into dams to regulate water levels. However, because of the significant changes beavers can make to their surroundings, there will likely still be cases where it is deemed necessary to remove individual beavers from certain sites.

Beaver Trust works with NatureScot to translocate beavers out of areas of conflict into more suitable habitat. Since the Beaver Mitigation and Management Framework was introduced in 2019 the number of beavers being lethally controlled has decreased year-on-year, and the number of beavers being translocated within Scotland has increased. This is certainly a positive trajectory, but we are concerned about the potential for this to change due to a lack of new translocation sites becoming available.

Currently, the vast majority of Scotland is off-limits for beaver translocations due to the requirement for catchments to have been subject to a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) before beaver translocations can be permitted. Completing SEAs requires a large amount of NatureScot’s limited resource, and so far, only a handful of catchments have been assessed. This, alongside the need for thorough stakeholder consultations prior to releasing beavers in new locations, means that it is not currently feasible for individual landowners or small conservation organisations to accept beavers onto their land in areas where beavers haven’t already been officially reintroduced.

The Scottish Wildlife Trust is very supportive of a rigorous species reintroduction process, including thorough stakeholder consultation, in line with the Code for Conservation Translocations. However, we question whether such rigorous processes should be required in places where beavers have already arrived naturally and may have been living for many years.

We believe a programme of public education and outreach in places where beavers have arrived naturally, and in locations they are expected to expand to in the next few years, would be more beneficial and appropriate than an official consultation. An outreach programme of this kind would make the public more aware of the presence of beavers, know what to expect, and help the public know how to access support.

It is true that the attributes of beavers that make them such an asset to the health of our ecosystems can also make it challenging for them to fit into our modified landscape. However, we believe that by making space for the natural flow of rivers, we can not only reap the benefits of the nature-based solutions provided by a healthy, connected river network, but also allow beavers to co-exist alongside humans as an integral part of a fully functioning river ecosystem. Across Scotland there are still many potential sites which could offer low-conflict and high-conservation value homes for beavers – but are currently out of bounds due to current NatureScot policy. We believe that NatureScot should review their approach to the translocation approvals process and prioritise opening new catchments for beaver release to remove unnecessary barriers to achieving the goals set out in Scotland’s Beaver Strategy.

More details of the Trust’s views on current beaver policy can be found in our recent policy briefing on beaver conservation and conflict.

 

Hazel Forrest, Policy Advisor (Species)