FOUR families of wild beavers — captured in Gnawway (terrible pun on Norway based on superficial knowledge of their habits) — are currently spending six months in quarantine at a specialist animal centre in Devon.
The idea is that four groups, each including a male and female pair with young beavers, will then be released in the remote Knapdale forest in Argyll, Scotland, next spring — more than 400 years since ancestral relatives were hunted to extinction.
Naturalists are also planning similar releases in Wales and England over the next five years. This is all very well, but how long will it be before they are chopping down local trees and causing blockages in Bradshaw Brook?
Unleashing the force of nature is not always a good idea.
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