Red, Green, and Blue

In the usually quiet countryside of Devon, England, a beaver has been leaving a trail of destruction, and causing political disquiet.  ‘Igor’ as one national paper has dubbed him, has been felling trees along the River Tamar in Cornwall after escaping from his Devon home. The beaver, which weighs six stone, is apparently not trying to build a dam, he’s simply living in a hole in the riverbank and felling the trees for food. He escaped in October, after a flood, in the company of two females, which were recaptured in a lake nearby after felling a number of trees on the River Thrushel.
And there’s the worrying bit for locals.  There’s a projected plan to release beavers into the wild in Scotland as early as next year. In fact Igor’s conservationist keeper has a bunch of quarantined beaver that he’s keeping for exactly that purpose, but Igor’s activities in travelling 20 miles and felling a significant number of trees is definitely troubling a lot of people.

Reintroduction or meddling?

While owner Derek Gow says that beavers are part of the ecosystem and should definitely be reintroduced, locals in Devon and Cornwall are wondering how much havoc beavers can produce and whether any garden, orchard or farm that backs onto a river would be safe.    Beavers were hunted to extinction in England and Wales during the 12th century, partly because their pelts were worth three years wages to the average peasant and partly, disgruntled people are suggesting, because they were such a nuisance.

Mr Gow plans to trap the beaver in a box baited with the scent of a female beaver as he believes Igor is trying to find a mate.  ‘He can’t build a dam because the Tamar is far too wide for one furry rodent,’ he said, against all the evidence that Igor seems to be trying.  He also says he has no idea how the beaver escaped.

Butterflies good, beaver bad

The UK’s plans to reintroduce native species hunted to extinction have always had a difficult time. While butterflies (Somerset) and red squirrels (Angelsey) have been uncontroversial, the white-tailed eagles have been lobbied against in some parts of Scotland and even poisoned on Mull, while the ‘accidental’ reintroduction of wild boar (sometimes through escapes of domestic pigs, sometimes deliberate releases by activists) causes massive local controversies, with farmers threatening to shoot free ranging pigs and environmentalists demonstrating to save them.

The issue was previously seen as being whether a small, highly-populated, intensively-farmed island can cope with the reintroduction of major prey species that can harm livestock: eagles, bears, and wolves. Many say not, that the time has passed for such species, but others claim that the UK could have a richer and more diverse eco-system if such species returned, and that safe management systems have been piloted elsewhere. Until recently, the disagreement has not included non-predators, but Igor seems likely to stir up another debate ahead of the planned beaver release in Scotland in 2010.

Beaver damage courtesy of shygantic at Flickr under a creative commons licence

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