Beavers may come back to St James End after half a millennium as charities campaign for free roam

Beavers may be seen back in St James End after almost 500 years of absence after the Wildlife Trust announced its beaver reintroduction scheme. 

Due to current guidelines in England, beavers are not allowed to free roam.

photo by Francesca Roche

Originally, beavers were no longer found in St James End after humans hunted them to extinction in the 16th Century, such as for their fur and meat. However, UK wildlife conservations and charities have now managed to convince policy makers to allow beavers to free roam in Scotland.

Nene Valley Projects Officer Ben Casey discusses the possible future for beavers in England “Although beavers are a protected species in the country, they don’t have the right to free roam. It will have to be an enclosed environment”

“The hope is from our Wildlife Trust and most conservation charities in the country that eventually beavers will have the right to free roam”

“When and where that happens is completely up to the government, the policy makers and their organisations”

“It will be there for the foreseeable future until policy changes, but policy won’t change until we can prove the fact they are manageable and have more evidence of their actions within a particular environment”

“We’re hoping that more enclosed reintroductions like this will move policy makers to open them to free roam”.

One of the more predominant reasons to bring the beavers back after so long from the Wildlife Trust’s perspective is the beavers skill of natural management “We spend an enormous amount of time and resources managing habitats to replicate natural processes”.

The Beavers will be placed at the Wildlife’s Trust Delta Pit of the Nene Wetlands (close to Rushden Lakes), which is the perfect spot for the protected species “We spend a lot of time managing environments to keep those areas in a semi-natural state”

“Within the Delta Pit area we’ve got wet woodlands, areas of reed bed which if left untouched would eventually succeed to the wet woodlands surrounding them”

“The beavers themselves will do that habitat management”.

The Trust spend a large amount of time and resources managing habitats to replicate natural processes “It’s incredibly difficult to perform that management work throughout the year, we don't want to be in there disturbing overwintering or breeding birds”

“We’ll end up having more management in a much more natural way, increasing the diversity of the site with different species without our interference”.

Beavers are extremely beneficial to the environment “The beavers are known as a keystone species, so from an evolutionary perspective lots of other species have developed to depend on them in terms of behaviour, how they manage the environment, promoting tree regrowth and creating deadwood which will be good for aquatic invertebrates”.

photo by Francesca Roche

Another reason to bring back the beavers was due to demand from the public “Beavers are a fantastic conversation starter for conservations and the natural world”

“There's something about beavers that resonates with people with how industrious they are, the fact that you can see them building dams and the effects they have on their environment”.

The Wildlife Trust has a visitors centre at Rushden Lakes, predicting that popularity for beaver free roam will only increase “The Nene Wetlands is near Rushden Lakes, meaning we we will be doing guided tours, talks and opening up that conversation and trying to get people enthusiastic about the natural world, it's a great opportunity to do so since beavers are so popular”.

However, due to the nature of the site the beavers won’t be introduced to the River Nene until at least 2025, due to the amount of work needed from the Wildlife Trust.

Despite this, some beavers are ready and prepared to enjoy their new lives in Northampton “We have a licence for two adults, a male and a female as well as some independent kits”.

Since beavers can now free roam in Scotland, “The Beaver Trust will be bringing them down from Scotland to the site”.

Casey has been working on the beaver reintroduction for a few years “There was a lot of background work to do in order to get to the point of reintroduction for where we are now”

“Over the past year or two we have done a lot of surveying and visibility studying”.

Due to tight beaver and site regulations, the reintroduction demands permission from multiple groups “There’s a lot of correct licences and permissions from various organisations which we needed to attain to begin with” 

“The main one being the licence to perform actions on beavers from Natural England, in our case it would be to capture, transport, release and then possess the beavers within the site”

“There’s also a bunch of designations which the site has, SPA (Special Protected Area) and SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest)”.

The Wildlife Trust must also ensure that beavers remain inside the area despite their own opposing opinions “In terms of the actual infrastructure itself, getting the beaver fence line is logistically the most demanding part of it”

“The fence itself will be around 1700 metres in length”

“We also have to make way for the fence line as well so there will also be a fair amount of vegetation removal in order to install the fence line”

The Wildlife Trust has already done other reintroductions over the years, mainly with cattle “Based on the learnings of previous reintroduction projects, the fence will be 2 metres tall with an overhang at the top”

“This will point into the site to stop them from climbing over”

“A skirt at the bottom will also be used to stop the beavers from digging underneath”

“Hopefully getting the beavers in will be the most straightforward path”.