ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Beavers were common inhabitants of the UK’s waterways for centuries.
A reintroduction of beavers to Britain could help clean up rivers, prevent flooding and minimise soil loss, an expert has claimed.
Professor Richard Brazier, a researcher at the University of Exeter, said unpublished preliminary results from a trial area in Devon showed muddy water entering an area where the creatures were living was three times cleaner when it left.
And he said farmers and agriculturalists should be grateful to the buck-toothed beasts cleaning up pollution caused by carbon and nitrogen from fertilisers being released into the environment.
Prof Brazier said: “We see quite a lot of soil erosion from agricultural land round here (near Okehampton).
“Our trial has shown that the beavers are able to dam our streams in a way that keeps soil in the headwaters of our catchment so it doesn’t clog up rivers downstream and pollute our drinking and bathing waters.
“Farmers should be happy that beavers are solving some of the problems that intensive farming creates.
“If we bring beavers back it’s just one tool we need to solve Britain’s crisis of soil loss and diffuse agricultural pollution of waterways, but it’s a useful tool.”
Prof Brazier’s claims were disputed by the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), which warned that the reintroduction of beavers to Scotland had led to fields and forests becoming damaged.
A spokesperson for the NFU said: “The knowledge of the impacts beavers have had to farmland, riverbanks and flood defences in Scotland is concerning. We await the (formal) results of the Devon trial and will analyse the outcomes then”.
Bavarian beavers thought to have escaped or been released into the wild in the Forfar area of Scotland about fifteen years ago have been blamed for damage to trees and water ditches.
Beavers were common inhabitants of the UK’s waterways for centuries, until hunting for their valuable pelts led to their eventual extinction.
Prof Brazier, an expert in Earth Surface Processes, insisted the animals could even play a useful role in preventing flooding – an increasingly common problem across parts of England.
He further added: “The public is currently paying people to build leaky dams to keep storm waters in the uplands.
“The beavers can do it free of charge and even build their own homes. They are busy as beavers. It’s a no-brainer.”
His claims were in part supported by Devon Wildlife Trust’s, who said that wildlife habitat in two areas in the north of the county had improved since the introduction of two beavers in 2011, with frogs and herons seeing particular benefits.
“We shouldn’t be surprised – beavers were part of our landscape and so many creatures evolved alongside them,” he said.
However, Professor Jane Rickson, a soil specialist from Cranfield University, Bedfordshire, joined the NFU in sounding a note of caution.
She agreed that in some places in the UK there was evidence of worrying soil loss, and said new policies were urgently needed.
Beavers may in fact reduce the river channel and remove vegetation, exposing banks to greater erosion and increasing, rather than decreasing, the risk of flooding, she warned.
And she said beaver dams should be “leaky” to avoid build-ups of large volumes of water.
An Environment Agency spokesman said: “Natural and hard flood defences both have an important role in keeping communities’ safe – though introducing beavers does not form part of our approach.”
