Beaver Destruction

[Laxdale]

Have they not made it into the S Esk catchment yet?
I remember Tony Andrews saying they were close a couple of years ago.

[admin]

I haven't heard of any there, but it's only a matter of time surely?  The Esks Trust will know.

[Alastair]

Their guard hairs make excellent split tails on mayfly patterns.

[admin]

Their guard hairs make excellent split tails on mayfly patterns.

Are there any good for Beaver Hair Caddis patterns in Canada?   

[Bobfly]

They make good hats 

[burnie]

The RSPB has to put wire round the legs of the hides at Kinnordy as the buggers were chewing through them lol

[Bobfly]

Perhaps landowners can involve the Forestry Commission for illegal fellings across all of Tayside without having the appropriate felling licence approval,  and without an agreed replanting programme. 

[tomcatin]

Grief, beaver anguish makes me want to weep.

I do not condone the illegal release of beavers, but they really are not a serious problem. Go anywhere in Strathtay (below the Tummel confluence) or Strathisla around Coupar Angus where the beavers thrive and watch silt pour off fields ploughed tight to the margins (loaded with fertilizers, organic soils and a wide range of pesticides), over extraction of water to produce tatties that taste of nothing, river banks poached by grazing, diffuse pollution from livestock, manicured river margins for clients who cannot manage a roll cast, piss poorly designed levees, road drainage not subject to SUDS principals discharging directly (loaded with Sodium Chloride), burns loaded with decades of fallen lumber etc. etc.

The native trees they drop, aren't necessarily dead, it time the remain rootswill naturally rejuvenate ........ I think the old woodman called this pollarding.

Modern agricultural practice, remains the biggest threat to East Coast rivers, beavers are a wee blip by comparison

[Laxdale]

Aye, right.

http://www.tdsfb.org/Tay%20DSFB%20Annual%20Report%202020%20final.pdf

"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."

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.

[admin]

Does farming cause more damage to rivers than beavers?  Absolutely, but is that an argument  for the introduction of beavers?  Is cannabis  less harmful than cocaine; who was worse; Mao, Hitler or Stalin?

For me this is not really about rivers but more about idiot politicians making choices in order to please a tiny, vociferous minority that leads to the destruction of other people’s property and not being held to account for it. And lets face it, in Scotland we have idiot politicians  by the bucket load.

The last Labour Scottish Executive understood this perfectly and refused to even sanction the trials far less  reintroductions.

Scotland’s coverage of native broadleaf trees is utterly pathetic, it seems a bit odd to me that people who call for a reduction in deer numbers to protect woodland  are very often also cheer leaders for tree felling rodents.