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Beaver Destruction

Started by Wildfisher, April 08, 2021, 03:42:29 PM

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Wildfisher

Just reading some posts on the Ericht, Isla and Dean FB page. Not a lot of support for beavers there. It's claimed the beaver felling has killed out a lot of riparian  trees and caused serious bank erosion which has led to loss of holding pools and habitat degradation. I can't vouch for this obviously, but t does tie in with what Moray said about beaver damage being common in that area. These guys are just ordinary anglers like us, so I'm not sure why they would make this  stuff up.  Perhaps wild beavers in areas with few trees is bound to end up with no trees?







tomcatin

Quote from: Laxdale on April 09, 2021, 09:43:38 AM
"Beaver Issues
Beaver impacts continue to require monitoring and management from Board staff. This has now become a significant part of the Fisheries Officers' work. As described in last year's report, regular
oversight has been required at a fish pass on the Shochie Burn which beavers regularly block. Beavers were also found to block a fish pass on the mainstem of the upper River Earn.
Because of lockdown, it is not known whether beaver damming may have blocked smolt migration from some streams during the very dry weather that prevailed in April / May 2020. This was a concern during that period and will be a key management concern for any river with beavers in future."

I really rest my case. I know the Shochie Burn intimately not least from the tight regular scrutiny of SEPA on our construction works around the Burn (and for that pleasure, we have to pay the £94/hr through our CAR construction site licenses, meanwhile in high water, when they are on site the Shochie runs the colour of a white coffee from the barley and tattie crops). Why does the Shochie and the Earn need fish passes which may be blocked by beaver felled lumber or just lumber .......... oh aye a man made weir. The problem here is not beavers, but the requirement for a fish pass in the first place (which from my experience here on the Devon, before our beavers arrived always required management to remove wood debris, which was normally a mixture of wind blow, dead lumber, washed out roots but mostly lumber cut with a chainsaw)

Quote from: Laxdale on April 09, 2021, 09:43:38 AM
What you write is not wrong, but as with most rewilding, it ignores the myriad of problems the reintroduction causes. Which is just wrong in every way.

We perhaps should agree to disagree, but I note that many of those that promote the current status quo (unrestricted Red Deer numbers, extermination of beavers and the extermination of any mammal/bird that threaten Red Grouse) are quite content to flood the UK with imported pheasants and red-legged partridges regardless of their impact on the native fauna?
Sadly my 7' 5 weight that killed fascists is deceased!

So in respect and in memorium, PLEASE DONATE TO AND SUPPORT THE WILD FISHING FORUM

Bobfly

There will be fairly ready coppicing stump regrowth with willow, alders, hazel and younger rowans. Birch would be an unlikely coppice from trees maybe 15+ years so there would not be obliteration but maybe a species shift. Older beech, oak, sycamore would go but often it is the flooding on gentle ground that kills off trees previously alongside ditches and drains. On Banff there is a lot of drowned big stuff but that is the flooding of parkland.
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Laxdale

We tend ro think of riparian to mean riverbank. Try q00 plus yards in places on the Isla catchment

Wildfisher

Quote from: Laxdale on April 09, 2021, 11:38:10 PM
We tend ro think of riparian to mean riverbank. Try q00 plus yards in places on the Isla catchment

The Ericht, Isla and Dean guys are saying the beavers have killed the trees and as a result the root systems that  hold the banks together  have deteriorated and the result is major erosion. No way to verify this but why would ordinary anglers lie?

My own view on beavers has always been pretty ambivalent, it's never been mush of an issue to me either way. That said I would not have believed the damage I saw the other day unless I'd seen it with my own eyes.

A few things need to be addressed in my opinion. Firstly there should be no introductions of ANYTHING  unless there is extensive suitable habitat - clearly this has not been met for beavers. There should be a fair compensation scheme in place to cover damage and losses. The people who make these decisions  should have a duty of care and should be held to account if it all goes belly up.




Laxdale

The beavers burrow into the river banks on the larger rivers, which is causing no end of erosion problems. I have seen probably 100s of pictures of the damage beavers do. The tree felling is a very visible part of the issue, but not the major problem.
It is important not to turn the beaver debate into the usual landowner/farmer bad crap. It is the general public (well, the tax paying part) that foots the bill for the damage. Councils that are short of money for essential services now have additional costs put onto them. I believe the repairs to an undermined road in Blairgowrie are costing 100s of thousands to repair.
As with other introductions of vermin, we keep getting told by the beaver lovers they have a list of landowners keen to help relocate problem beavers. Ask if the neighbouring riparian owners have been consulted, or who pays them compensation for damage, and you get abuse.
Which reminds me...the crofters/farmers up my way are kicking off again about the killing eagles are doing. That is no going to end well for the eagles if Naturescot do not grow a pair.

Wildfisher

Much of the "rewilding"  has been hijacked to be another front in the wider culture wars being waged by the hard left. I used to use some of the wildlife groups on FB for photography purposes but they ended up being taken over and used as propaganda for the SNP, lunatic Greens and woke climate change fanatics.  Just like everything these morons  touch they became pointless and counter productive.

Make no mistake if you fish or shoot these fanatics are coming for you.

Wildfisher

Yesterday evening I read a very interesting account of an interview with Ben Ross, the heid beaver bummer from the Scottish Beaver Project.

I won't bore you with the details but two things stood out. The problems  in the prime agricultural areas are recognised and  very many culling licenses have already been issued. The second  point was The Green Loonies, as you might expect, are up in arms about the culling and want the beavers trapped and relocated – with no consultation or agreement with the landowners and communities who will receive this wonderful gift,  naturally.  Apparently that has been dismissed and the culls are going ahead as we type.

It was said the raising of water levels by beaver dams by only a few inches can lead to extensive flooding in the  prime agricultural flatlands of Angus and Perthshire and that came from the beaver bunch, not the farmers. I was very surprised at how balanced these views were.

Bobfly

Beavers now to be given protected staus in England and Wales, so can now be released outwith containment fencing. Ready made receivers for unwanted Scottish exports.
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Bobfly

I wrote off to NatureScot to ask what the position is regarding reports of beavers with disease in the Lintrathen water supply. They have written back to say that wild and domestic stock carry these same diseases and the risk levels are low. They have been capturing and sampling Tayside beavers for several years finding only low disease levels and that there are beaver activity reports at Lintrathen from 2012 onwards.
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