Beaver update - 16 Feb

I’m afraid this update contains some sad news and descriptions that you may find upsetting.

Since our last update we’ve discovered two of the kits, from the family of seven beavers moved to Loch Lomond at the end of January, have died. 

We discovered the deaths when reviewing remote camera footage at the end of last week. We saw clips from 2 am on Thursday of several young beavers alive and well. Then a clip from just five hours later showed an otter and a dead kit.

We managed to find the kit’s body and so could identify it as the smallest kit. The body appeared in good condition but also looked to have been partially eaten. We sent it for post-mortem to determine cause of death. 

The post-mortem confirmed our suspicions. It concluded that the kit was predated by an otter, being killed and then eaten. It also determined that the kit was in good bodily condition and feeding well, with no evidence of disease that might have contributed to its death.

We discovered the death of the second kit from remote camera clips the following day. We cannot be completely certain what happened from the short videos recorded by the camera and were unable to find the body, but we suspect that the same thing happened to this kit.

It is known that young beavers, particularly small kits, can be predated (killed to eat) by otters, foxes, pine martens, birds of prey and even large pike. Studies also show that kit mortality can be quite high especially in their first year. None of this makes it any easier and we’re very sad to have lost these kits despite it being a natural process.

We’ve moved some of the remote cameras and added extras to try to better monitor the rest of the family. Thankfully, the clips we’ve captured over the last few days have been heartening. We’ve shared some of those below.

This clip was captured on one of the remote cameras at 5.42 am last Saturday morning. It shows a kit swimming in the pool by the dam.

Then just before 9 pm on Monday night, the same remote camera captured this video of the female swimming in the same small area of open water between the dam and a log across the channel.

At 11.19 pm on Tuesday, a different camera captured this 6 second video clip of the adult female and one of the kits feeding. Both are close to the edge of the channel nibbling on small sticks with the kit closest to the camera. There’s open ground to the front and left of the image and water to the right.

This short six second video clip from the same place just before midnight on Tuesday is perhaps my favourite. There’s two beavers in the centre of the image. They are at the edge of a channel with open ground to the left and water to the right. One beaver is grooming the other. It’s up on its back legs moving using its front paws and mouth to groom the back of the other beaver.

We’ll continue to share updates about the beavers here and on social media as often as we can.

Header image: Screenshot from black and white remote camera video. There’s two beavers in the centre of the image standing in shallow water at the edge of a channel - one is on its hind legs grooming the back of the other.