Relocated beavers improve water quality

Two beavers who were moved from Scotland to Norfolk four years ago have improved the water quality where they are living, experts have said.

Eeyore and Winnie have made an area of the River Glaven, near Holt, their home after the landowner gave permission for them to live there.

Norfolk Rivers Trust said they could "possibly" now be released from their enclosure under licence after the government recently approved the reintroduction of the animals into the wild.

The National Farmers' Union (NFU) has said it does not want any more released until a proper management plan is in place.

Beavers' dams slow down the flow of water, trapping sediment and absorbing excess nutrients.

They also serve as natural filtration systems and help maintain cooler stream temperatures.

Before the beavers arrived, the river was a small trickle and in need of restoration.

Norfolk Rivers Trust said it was thought they now had five kits [baby beavers] and have improved the water quality.

Ursula Juta, an ecologist from the trust, said: "Dam by dam almost, the water quality has improved, which is incredible, so they reduce agricultural pollutants [and] they reduce the sediment loads coming in from fields and from roads as well.

"These dams are so big and can hold water so well. I couldn't build this with my own hands, with a bit of mud and some sticks, so how on earth do the beavers do it? It just shows how industrious they are.

"It's a shock for some people to see how the habitat changes and to see felled trees and big areas of flooding but this is how it should look; it's almost prehistoric."

Four hundred years ago, beavers were hunted to extinction.

In February, the government approved their reintroduction into the wild under licence and in March the first wild beavers in England were released into the Dorset countryside.

The NFU has agreed that beavers can provide certain benefits but is also concerned about the negative impacts they can have on productive farmland.

"With existing legal and illegal populations of beavers expanding across England, the government must put in place a longer-term vision and management plan for beavers – before any further wild releases are considered," a spokesman said.

"This must include the ability for those involved in beaver management to use all available tools in the toolbox, including lethal control, if beavers become disruptive."

Dr Jonah Tosney, technical director at the trust, said: "There are plenty of places where beavers would be very welcome and cause no trouble at all, as they are doing here, but plenty of other places where they wouldn't be quite as welcome and they are very capable of causing trouble.

"Possibly, we will release Eeyore and Winnie at some point but what we would also need to do would be to bring other beavers into the catchment, [so] we've got different genetics.

"We are also trying to work with landowners and farmers to understand what they would like to see in a management plan because it has to be carefully managed, there's no question about that."

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