Beaver on the Tummel

[Highlander]

Just back from my weekly summer visit to Pitlochry. Unfortunately no fishing for me this time. Was sitting on the bench just downstream from Port Na Craig suspension bridge just watching the water flow.
SHMBO was walking the dog around playing fields. Anyway first evening a lovely Brown of around 3lbs porpoised in front of me. Second night I saw a disturbance on the far bank & this creature swam across the stream towards me. An Otter I thought but no a bloody big spade of a tail, a Beaver an adult by the size of it. What the hell was Beaver doing this far up the river? Next evening a lovely Salmon head & tailed in mid stream. Last siting two Otters were cavorting about. All from the same view point lucky me.
Question is  How come a Beaver is so far up the river, not as if it could build a lodge in that part of the river. There are a few side streams so maybe there but lots of traffic dog walkers,locals & the like.

Tight Lines

[Wildfisher]

They are everywhere Alan. Even at Kinnordy Loch which is not connected to the Tay by any significant waterway. Right up the Dean and into Forfar Loch as well.

[Bobfly]

On the Tay system the beavers were beyond Kinloch Rannoch four years ago or more. Now west beyond the Teith at Loch Lubnaig.

[scoobyscott]

Heatd theyve been spotted on my local the Devon in Clackmannanshire! Cant confirm as haven't seen them

[Wildfisher]

It's a matter of time before they are everywhere and once they are they will rapidly multiply. The clowns in Hollyrood gave them  full protection and even disturbing them without licence is a criminal offence. You will know straight away when they arrive in your area by the vast number of horizonal trees that appear. Sometimes I really do despair about Scotland and our  seemingly twisted priorities.

[Laxdale]

NatureScot are being naughty as usual. A quite recent judicial review said in part of the judgement that licences to kill should be given BEFORE damage occurs. Thereare now over 1000 beaver on the Tay system (population increasing exponentially).

[Wildfisher]

To be clear I have nothing against beavers, it's the clueless clowns  making policy that are the issue, not the animals. On the one hand conservation organisations are telling us we need more riparian trees to improve fish habitat, something I fully agree with. Then the politicians  are introducing an animal that is felling riparian trees faster than they can grow. 

[Highlander]

Thanks for info guys I did not realise they had spread so far & how quickly. I think man has had a hand in the later. Like Fred I have no issue with Beaver introduction . Why don't we add a Lynx or two, maybe a Black Bear & a pack of wolves. That might keep their numbers down     Beaver pelts are at a premium in Alaska so maybe a natty line in hats is on the cards
Tight Lines

[Laxdale]

I am working with a guy just now who spent a few summers working in rural Sweden with Swedish country folk.
Beaver, wolves, lynx and bears were part of daily life (He was working in a farming area with sheep some of the time).
One interesting story was a Saami guy who got jailed for finding and killing a den of wolves. When he got out he was treated like a celeb by the local Sammi and made tribal(?) leader.
The issues are the same as here in that no one who has to live with the predators wants them (and that the nonsense being spun here by rewilders is lies).

[Wildfisher]

I do have sympathies with some aspects of re-wilding. Apart from  the plain fact that those who shout loudest in favour of it are university educated, middle class urban  types with their arses super glues to the M25 and who don't have to live with the consequences of  it.  I don't have words that can adequately express how much I despise these people. The entire thing has all the ingredients in the mix for another gigantic scam. Not perhaps a scam on the scale  next to useless "renewable energy"  has turned out to be, but a scam nonetheless.