Bid to make Glen Affric Scotland’s next beaver release site

 

A community consultation that will help decide whether beavers are reintroduced to Glen Affric has been launched in the Scottish Highlands, led by Trees for Life.

 

The rewilding charity is carrying out the consultation on behalf of four private landowners and Forestry and Land Scotland, who all manage land that has habitat capable of supporting a beaver population. 

 

If the proposal is successful, it would be the first official release of beavers to the north-west Highlands since the species was driven to extinction some 400 years ago.

 

Trees for Life has long campaigned

Threat to new beaver family in the Highlands of Scotland

A family of beavers found living on a river in the Beauly area in the Scottish Highlands are to be trapped and put into captivity following a decision by Scottish Government Ministers. Trees for Life, the charity which discovered the group, says the family should either stay where they are or be relocated locally.

Film from camera traps set by the conservation experts from the charity in mid-June clearly show the presence of a mother and at least two

Beaver shooting must stop. Scottish Wild Beaver Group Press Release.

European beaver feeding © Laurie Campbell

News of the shooting of beavers in Tayside by some farmers has led to an outcry from supporters, conservationists, and animal lovers everywhere. Of especial concern is the fact that, while an overdue decision from Scottish Government to adopt the protection due to the species under the European Habitats Directive, there is not even a closed season and the females can therefore be shot pregnant or lactating, killing kits slowly by starvation.

SWBG call for an immediate moratorium on shooting in advance of an early decision to enshrine EU legal protection of the species in Scotland.

Louise Ramsay, Co-Chair of SWBG says: “We flew a