A family of ‘river anarchists’ are thriving after being reintroduced to a region after a 400-year absence, leaving their mark in just one year.
The four Eurasian beavers were released onto the Wallington estate in Northumberland in July 2023 and recently welcomed a baby boy, the Guardian reported.
The work also includes the creation of ponds, pools and mudflats that cover the size of half a football pitch. Changes in water levels in the wetlands have attracted kingfishers, grey herons and Daubenton’s bats, among other wildlife.
These fascinating and impressive creatures may look cute and cuddly at first glance, but they slap the water with their tails, knock down trees and generally destroy things, in a good way. They also improve water quality, prevent erosion and mitigate flooding, according to Rewilding Britain.
“Beavers are constantly changing the landscape. You don’t really know what’s going to happen next and that probably scares some people,” Paul Hewitt, the National Trust’s campaign manager in Wallington, told the Guardian. “They’re basically river anarchists.”
The reintroduction of the species to Northumberland is one of many such projects in the UK, where beavers thrived until the 1500s. In Scotland, they have helped endangered water voles recover and transformed an ecosystem on the East Devon River after a mysterious reappearance in 2014.
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Beavers are so useful that people even deploy them illegally in areas in need of renovation.
“This time last year, I didn’t know exactly what beavers did,” Hewitt told the Guardian. “Now I understand it a lot better and it’s a moment of revelation. They’re such a magical animal in what they do.”
Of the two adults and two babies released in Wallington, one of the juveniles may have moved on, more than 60 miles (96 kilometers) down the River Derwent. It is unclear why, as the river anarchists are not known for talking to conservationists. Yet they continue to get up to mischief and have even sparked optimism among beaver safari enthusiasts about the state of the environment, the Guardian reported.
“That’s why beavers are great,” said Heather Devey, co-founder of Wildlife Intrigue. “There’s so much understandable pessimism — we’re in a climate crisis, we’re in a biodiversity crisis — but beavers offer a really positive outlook for the future.”
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