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Beaver Management Officer
An opportunity has arisen for someone to play a key role in bringing beavers back to the Highlands.
https://treesforlife.org.uk/about-us/work-with-us/
Plenty of comedy potential, sure, but it’s also a cool job mostly outdoors and in a cool place.
Well I am from Clitheroe, so maybe that would help with the application process?
4 pages, 2 hernias and one set of busted ribs from someone surfing STW while in a work meeting stifling giggles.
Must resist....
That's a surprisingly good salary
I hate to break it to you but the Highlands area already full of cute beaver. I'm lucky to have seen a few
Does it come with lodgings 😕
I have a selection of beavers near to my house. They seem to be hidden most of the time, but I have caught one out in the open quite brazenly. There was a group of locals out looking to catch a sight of one, apparently you can pay for such things locally, but I was fortunate enough to see them as I cycled past at just the right moment. It did cause me to swerve as I was not expecting to see a wet beaver so early in the day or a group of people peering at it.
It did cause me to swerve
Good job really, you can't just go plowing into these things uninvited
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Make sure you don’t antagonise them though as they can quickly become a growler.
Blatant clikbait 😂
That’s a surprisingly good salary
many would do it for free.
If anyone is keen enough to pay for a tour of the beavers in Dunblane, you can book a place here. Just take a good camera with you to ensure you have some photo's for posterity.
Apparently an evening like no other.
https://argatyredkites.co.uk/beavers/
Seems like a dam(n) good job.
Seems to be slightly at odds with the main aims of the organisation. Many a fine upstanding woody pole has been felled by a beaver.
As long as there's no grooming required
At the risk of being a bit serious for a second my mate took me to one of the controlled reintroduction sites many years ago, it was fences off so the beavers couldn't escape. The increases in biodiversity were off the scale, really amazing to see.
In less serious mode
attention young ladies
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0U4D4pErQ_E&pp=ygUSYmVhdmVyIHBhdHJvbCBwd2Vp
Well, I suppose we can add this to the small list of careers no STWer has professional experience of.
I suspect there are some enthusiastic amateurs though.
I find it astonishing that an animal native to Britain, until humans came along, cannot be legally released into the wild.
Well, I suppose we can add this to the small list of careers no STWer has professional experience of.
Nah, a few of us no doubt have experience in the Ecology world. But reintroduction stuff is on trend and really does draw in the enthusiastic amateurs, so in that you are very much not wrong!
I find it astonishing that an animal native to Britain, until humans came along, cannot be legally released into the wild.
That’s something that really does piss me off! A colony of beaver were discovered in Devon, appropriately on the River Otter! Nobody knows how they got there, but they were breeding and had a significant number of members, and it was estimated that they’d been there for roughly a decade. Now, it’s entirely possible that the locals were perfectly aware of them, and just kept schtum, but when it became public knowledge, then the government got involved and started stating that the entire colony was to be removed, the animals thoroughly checked over then relocated to an enclosure or else put down! 😖
Just the suggestion is obscene. However, a huge public row caused a backdown, with the realisation that there was the perfect opportunity to study, in the wild, a thriving community of wild beaver and how its interacted with the environment for a decade. Now there are further releases going on, particularly concentrating on areas where flood control is becoming a serious issue. Especially with the rainfall we’ve been experiencing recently.
Beaver aren’t the only ones where ‘experts’ are poking their noses in - in the north of England, European Eagle Owls have turned up, they disappeared from England in the 18th century, and they seem to be breeding. They’re common in Europe and Scandinavia, and they’ve been sporadic visitors for years. There have been calls for a reintroduction, but despite the same thing having been done very successfully with Red Kites, the owls ‘aren’t a native species’, which is clearly bollocks. Especially now Sea Eagles have been re-introduced in the Isle of Wight, which blows that argument away. There’s also the livestock predation argument that continues to arise.
Still, with eagle owls and sea eagles out in the wild, there’s finally something big enough to naturally cull deer and fox numbers.
I now see red kites and ravens flying over my house, which is no longer on the edge of a small market town, so who knows, maybe I’ll see a sea eagle blotting out the sunlight over my garden one day; one of the released birds did almost a circuit of Britain before flying across the Channel and back, so it’s not impossible.
That’s something that really does piss me off! A colony of beaver were discovered in Devon
Genuine question here!
I thought that until reintroduction, beavers were absolutely and totally 100% extinct in the UK and had been for centuries?
^^ Yes they were. No one knows exactly how the ones in Devon got there but they must have either been released or escapees.
This is video below has been posted before more than once but always worth watching imo as teaches both an important and heartwarming lesson.
The bit about the beaver starts at about 2mins but the bit before is obviously important.
@ernielynch thanks for sharing that wolf video - a fascinating watch.
The Bamff estate near Alyth on the Perthshire /Angus border carried out a sub radar beaver introduction around 20 years ago, the result of which is that the population of beavers in Scotland is thought (by Nature Scotland's rangers) to be around 2000. That does include the official releases at Knapdale in Argyle and Argaty in Stirlingshire, where Matt is local. This year they are being added to the Spey valley on a release and Affric is clearly next. The Loch Lomond release last year of 4 had a setback, when an otter ate the two large kits but it's hoped that the parents will have learned to be better guardians by the next breeding cycle. There's talk about a plan for the Dee & Don catchments in the NE but as you'd expect, many of the landowners are mostly still stuck in the Victorian era and resist all change.
So, they're already in several catchments areas and are expected to continue expansion. At this rate, we'll be needing Lynx soon, for beaver control as well as deer control. Up in the Affric woods seems to make the most sense, where they can roam quite widely and where woodland expansion and linking across glens is continuing.
Sincere apologies for the lack of beaver related smut in the above post, I'm just not sufficiently switched on yet this morning.
Huge fan of the Beaver, saw my first one last month at Trentham Gardens. Soon there’ll be beavers introduced to the Wyre forest, and I’m also hopefully going to be volunteering with Shropshire WT helping their Beaver release near Shrewsbury soon.
Cannot recommend reading Derek Gow’s books enough, also to get along to his re-wilding summits in Devon.
We successfully introduced Bravers to our Scout hut about 30 years ago, and earlier this year successfully set up a den of the new red Squirrels.
They're bad enough in captivity, terrifying to try and control in the wild.
Bamff estate near Alyth on the Perthshire /Angus border carried out a sub radar beaver introduction around 20 years ago, the result of which is that the population of beavers in Scotland is thought (by Nature Scotland’s rangers) to be around 2000. That does include the official releases at Knapdale in Argyle and Argaty in Stirlingshire, where Matt is local. This year they are being added to the Spey valley on a release and Affric is clearly next
You can also add a good number on the Forth, Teith, Earn and Tay, and someone told me last month there's a pair halfway up Ben Lawers at 450m altitude...!
Yes, they've spread throughout the Tay catchment from that original release. Lots of happy beavers.
Lots of happy beavers.
Eager surely?
I find it astonishing that an animal native to Britain, until humans came along, cannot be legally released into the wild.
At this rate, we’ll be needing Lynx soon, for beaver control as well as deer control.
This is the thing really, just because something used to live somewhere doesn't mean that putting it back is necessarily a good idea. Without some balances and restrictions you end up with the reintroduction and resulting expansion causing issues with the things that still do live there.
There's also the issue of where these things come from, it's not like you can just walk into a shop in soho and buy a beaver. Chances are they're smuggled in and wouldn't pass bio security checks and restrictions that are quite important to prevent the few things that are still here being exposed to all sorts of diseases.
The other thing is, if we didn't try and restrict these things people would just reintroduce stuff willy nilly and we'd be back to situations like having dragons living all over Wales not just in the occasional steam engine.
Chances are they’re smuggled in and wouldn’t pass bio security checks and restrictions that are quite important to prevent the few things that are still here being exposed to all sorts of diseases.
Irrespective of whether they are legally sourced and disease free it is illegal to release beavers, a species native to Britain before being eradicated by a non-native species, into the wild.
I don't think there is any restriction on releasing them onto enclosed land.
Unless beavers were originally irradiated for the good of the environment I don't see the point of maintaining a beaver-free environment.
I don’t see the point of maintaining a beaver-free environment.
Because all the stuff that used to keep them in check isn't here anymore either.
No Lynx, no brown bears, no wolves etc.
One thing we've done a very good job of over the last several hundred years is proving biospheres don't work very well with bits missing.
They were eradicated by humans, humans are still around!
Edit: Do you think that all deer should be eradicated from Britian and we should have a deer-free environment because there are currently no wolves?
I don’t see the point of maintaining a beaver-free environment.
I hear there's dating web sites available...
They were eradicated by humans, humans are still around!
I'm not entirely sure that the purpose of reintroduction is to give people something to shoot.
I don’t see the point of maintaining a beaver-free environment.
Some believe it should be well trimmed back.
I’m not entirely sure that the purpose of reintroduction is to give people something to shoot.
And yet you seem to think that reintroduction would be fine if there were wolves and bears to kill and eat them.
The idea that the beaver population would be out of control because of the lack of predators has no merit.
What do you think might happen..... they might redirect the River Thames?!?
Do you think that all deer should be eradicated from Britian and we should have a deer-free environment because there are currently no wolves?
No but there is a big difference between eradicating something that does live here* because there aren't enough predators and thinking it's a good idea to simply reintroduce it when there's no structure in place to support it.
I'm guessing you're less keen on the idea of unrestricted reintroduction of wolves, Lynx, bison etc to say central Birmingham just because they used to live there?
There's the significant potential of reintroduction to do more harm than good. Just because rabbits didn't live in Australia (where let's face it everything is trying to kill things) doesn't mean it shouldn't be seen as a cautionary tale about the dangers of introducing something to a biosphere where it no longer fits.
Reintroducing beavers in the long term might turn out to be nothing but good news but it needs doing in a controlled way to make sure any problems can be spotted and addressed.
*equally moving the ones on the Otter is madness
Well only a couple of weeks ago they arrived in Ealing, which is only a short ride on the tube to the River Thames embankment!
http://www.ealingtoday.co.uk/default.asp?section=info&page=eawildlife013.htm
🦫🌲🦦🌲🦫🌲🦦🌲🦫🌲
I am in the process of applying for a job that has the potential to include an element of management proposal for beaver rewilding in a beautiful part of England
So please do keep sharing recommendations about these Ecosystem Engineers such as
- the George Monbiot narrated video
- Derek Gow ‘Bringing back the beaver book’
- and general reference to Scotland’s Beaver Strategy
2022-2045
As this is all genuinely helpful to a farmer with a passion for nature but new to Beaver ecology