A family of “river anarchists” is thriving after being reintroduced to an area following 400 years away, making their mark in just one year.
The four Eurasian beavers were released on the Wallington Estate in Northumberland in July 2023 and recently welcomed a bundle of joy, the Guardian reported.
The work they’ve done also includes the creation of ponds, pools, and mudscapes that cover the size of half a soccer field. The changing water levels in the wetlands have enticed kingfishers, gray herons, and Daubenton’s bats, among other wildlife.
The fascinating and awe-inspiring creatures might look cute and cuddly at first glance, but they thump the water with their tails, fell trees, and generally wreck stuff — in a good way. They also improve water quality, prevent erosion, and mitigate flooding, according to Rewilding Britain.
“Beavers are changing the landscape all the time; you don’t really know what is coming next and that probably freaks some people out,” Paul Hewitt, countryside manager for the National Trust at Wallington, told the Guardian. “They are basically river anarchists.”
The Northumberland reintroduction of the species is one of many such projects in the United Kingdom, where beavers thrived until the 1500s. In Scotland, they’ve helped endangered water voles recover, and they’ve transformed an ecosystem on the East Devon River after a mysterious reappearance in 2014.
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Beavers are so helpful that people even illegally deploy them in areas in need of a makeover.
“This time last year I don’t think I fully knew what beavers did,” Hewitt told the Guardian. “Now I understand a lot more and it is a massive lightbulb moment. It is such a magical animal in terms of what it does.”
Of the two adults and two kits released at Wallington, one of the juveniles may have moved on — more than 60 miles to the River Derwent. It’s uncertain because river anarchists aren’t known to check in with conservationists. Still, they perpetrate their good trouble and have even raised optimism among beaver safari-goers about the state of the environment, the Guardian reported.
“That’s why beavers are great,” Wildlife Intrigue co-founder Heather Devey told the outlet. “There is so much understandable doom and gloom around — we’re in a climate crisis, a biodiversity crisis — but beavers provide a really positive outlook for the future.”
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