The image picked up by the infra-red was unmistakable – two little balls of fluff rooting about in the undergrowth beside their mothers was evidence of the first wild-born beavers in the Cairngorms for more than 400 years.
Conservationists were ecstatic at the sight: their co-ordinated effort to re-establish the species across large parts of Scotland after such a long absence has taken another decisive step towards fruition with the arrival this month of the two kits born to the six-family group recently translocated to the area.
Just wait, they urged, these environmental warriors will pit their unrivalled skills as ‘ecosystem engineers’ to ‘change and re-naturalise’ the landscape of the upper Spey valley.
Given the time and space, their mastery of dam-building, tree removal and river re-routing will not only create new wetlands but reduce flood risks.
A controversial beaver release is planned for next spring in Glen Affric
Their cartoonishly toothy appearance belies their status as serious players in the world of biodiversity, hailed as minor miracle workers who seem to hold a near-mystical power to ward off droughts, purify water and give life to other species.
It is quite the CV and, as a result, one would imagine other landowners would be queuing up to benefit from their healing properties.
And yet, the nocturnal footage of months-old kits finding their webbed feet is viewed with a sceptical eye in some quarters.
Many who currently work the productive farmland bordering the Spey remind themselves that these animals were relocated to the Cairngorms from Tayside not simply because of their magical powers of environmental restitution but because of the trail of destruction they left in their wake.
Farmers and crofters point to reports of hundreds of trees felled or gnawed beyond use on farms bordering the River Tay and its tributaries, acres of ruined crops and flooded fields from collapsed riverbanks and a succession of dams blocking waterways and filling them with debris.
They look at the damage – sometimes costing six figures to repair – caused by a rapidly expanding beaver population and fear that their land will be next.
Such anxiety is shared by the people of Strathglass, whose farms border the wildernesses of Glen Affric in the northwest Highlands, which is next in the rewilders’ sights.
There, officials at the Scottish Government’s tree-planting agency have decided to press ahead with plans for a beaver release in a community bitterly divided by the proposal.
Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) intends to apply this autumn for a licence to introduce beavers on its Glen Affric estate.
If the application is allowed by the government’s wildlife agency NatureScot, it could see yet more beavers translocated from troublesome Tayside, this time to FLS land at the Loch Beinn a’ Mheadhoin reservoir.
As such, it would mark another step-change in the animals’ spread as only the second release in the Highlands outside their existing ranges around Tayside and in Argyll, the first north of the Great Glen, and the first by FLS, which will be working in partnership with conservation charity Trees for Life (TfL).
Although a majority of people in the local community, centred on the village of Cannich, five miles downstream from the proposed release site, have said they are happy about the reintroduction, feelings have been running high among local farmers – dozens of whom remain opposed.
Some fear the decision to approve the release is likely to be rubber-stamped given NatureScot’s role in spearheading the government’s new national beaver strategy.
Glen Affric in the northwest Highlands
The beaver kits born in Cairngorm National Park were the first in 400 years
It reflects a change in policy under the Bute House Agreement aimed at supporting expansion of the population by trapping and translocating the rodents rather than control by lethal means.
When the Scottish Greens were jettisoned from office, the beaver policy remained intact.
However, with Scotland’s beaver population continuing to grow to an estimated 424 beaver territories currently, or 1,500 individual animals, and a report by NatureScot showing trappings and translocations were up 28 per cent in 2022 compared to the previous year, the only remaining question is where to put them all?
Sheena Thomson, who farms 500 acres in Strathglass, intends to object to the application.
She fears the beaver population will grow and expand beyond the reservoir’s own man-made dam and damage the banks of the River Glass that protect her fields from flooding, meaning the loss of hay, silage and grazing.
‘Since day one, they just haven’t listened,’ she said.
‘The majority of local farmers are against this. We are the people who will have to bear the cost of flooding, in lost productivity, and we feel our views should have more weight than people who don’t have a stake.
‘The introduction of beavers should not be to the detriment of existing businesses.’
Karl Falconer, who farms 60 acres near Cannich where he runs an alpaca trekking company, said erosion on the River Glass was already a problem because of rapid fluctuations in water levels, caused by the dam on Loch Beinn a’ Mheadhoin and the hydro-electricity power station it serves at nearby Fasnakyle.
He said: ‘If the beavers come down to Strathglass, which they will, and if they burrow into the river bank as is their nature, and all of a sudden the river comes up because they start generating power, the holes they’ve just dug get flooded and will cause massive erosion over time.
‘Beavers are beautiful wee beasties, and I’m all for reintroduction in the right places, but we feel Strathglass is the wrong place and we’re getting ignored, yet we’re the ones who are going to financially suffer.
‘We feel the consultation process has been abysmal and the only people being listened to are those who want the beavers here.’
FLS stressed the first releases, which could start as early as next spring, would only go ahead ‘once we have mitigated the concerns that have been raised through our consultation process’.
Mitigation is intended to lessen any negative impacts of beavers and can include providing support to farmers facing beaver-dam floods, and monitoring where the animals go.
What mitigation does not offer, however, is any financial recompense for anyone affected – a bone of contention for landowners.
Their case has been taken up by Inverness and Nairn MSP Fergus Ewing who said that public bodies were ‘keen on putting beavers into Scotland – but none seem prepared to put their hands in their pockets to pay up for the cost of the damage’.
Farmer Karl Falconer has concerns
He added: ‘It beggars belief that at a time when Finance Secretary Shona Robison says we’re all in a financial emergency, she seems to allow public bodies to splash the cash on these wacky schemes.’
The Glen Affric proposal has had a difficult birth. Originally planned for a wider area, this larger scheme was scaled back drastically when four private landowners involved, including the Glen Affric Estate, pulled out leaving FLS on its own.
But this slimmed down plan still faces opposition from NFU Scotland, which remains staunchly opposed to beaver translocations while accepting natural expansion into areas away from productive agricultural land.
Its president Martin Kennedy has experience of the damage caused by beavers at his Lurgan Farm, near Aberfeldy, Perthshire, and told of one farmer who lost £25,000 of crops due to flooding caused by beaver dams.
He pointed out there was ‘no compensation for those bearing the brunt of the negative impact of these translocations’.
He added: ‘We are now at the point where we simply cannot afford to have any of these rodents present in productive farmland.
‘As such, translocations should stop until effective mitigation is available to those likely to be impacted.’
That seems unlikely. Scottish Rewilding Alliance (SRA), a powerful lobby group of green charities which includes TfL, is pushing hard for a faster programme of reintroductions and has accused Scotland’s public bodies of a ‘go-slow’ on translocations.
Kevin Cumming, SRA deputy convenor, said the scaled back proposal meant the loch’s dam would act as a barrier to beavers reaching Strathglass.
However, he added: ‘Beavers from unauthorised releases have been in Strathglass for at least 16 years. In all that time, no damage has ever been caused.
‘In the extremely unlikely event that this happens, TfL has employed a beaver management officer who will help ensure mitigation can be put in place in line with the Scottish beaver strategy.’
But damage must occur first before it can be mitigated.
At the height of problems in Tayside two years ago, Adrian Ivory, who farms at Strathisla, complained: ‘They probably cost me three or four grand a year. I’m spending money on something that I have had nothing to do with and have no control over.’
Hunted to extinction for their pelts in the 16th and early 17th centuries, beavers are now a talismanic species for the re-wilding movement which aims to reintroduce historically native animals.
The Scottish Government is firmly in their corner – beavers became a protected species in 2019 and, two years ago, a 23-year plan to ‘actively expand the population to new catchments’ was unveiled by NatureScot.
Numbers have boomed since 2009 when 17 Norwegian beavers were released into the wild in Knapdale, Argyll, to monitor their viability and the impact on the environment.
Yet, Tayside’s population explosion has little to do with ‘authorised’ beavers but were likely the descendants of escapees from one or more private collections.
Fingers are regularly pointed at Paul and Louise Ramsay who, from 2002, set about turning their 1,300-acre Bamff Estate near Alyth into a haven for beavers.
The couple did not deliberately free any but concede some may have found their way out.
‘It became difficult to keep them enclosed because their numbers were going up,’ said Mr Ramsay in 2017. ‘We had three wet winters, so there will have been escapees.’
With no natural predators and lethal control today used only as a last resort, beaver numbers are likely to similarly increase in translocation areas.
And some farmers are happy to welcome beavers onto their land.
One such is Tom Bowser, who reintroduced several to his family farm at Argaty, near Doune, in Perthshire, under licence, saving them from culling.
He said: ‘The beavers have only brought us benefits. Their dams in what was once a flood-prone part of our farm have saved us real money in annual track repairs, because we just don’t see floods there anymore.’
Mr Bower suggested that most disputes over rewilding could be resolved with money.
‘Rather than endlessly fighting over every translocation, we must work towards a system that helps those working the land to accommodate beavers,’ he said, adding that cursory discussions at Holyrood on wildlife co-existence payments ‘were very welcome’.
‘If we can restore our waterways and find ways to pull farming back from the water’s edge we will solve 99 per cent of Scotland’s beaver issues,’ he added.
That just leaves the farmers of Strathglass, then, gnawing away at that tricky 1 per cent.
