Bringing Beavers back to Insh Marshes nature reserve

We are excited to announce that Beavers are now back on another one of our nature reserves. Thijs Claes, warden at Insh Marshes, tells us more.

When it comes to expanding the range of Beavers in Scotland, our Insh Marshes nature reserve has been on the radar for a long time. So, we were very excited to be able to support the Cairngorms National Park Authority’s work to bring Beavers back to the Cairngorms.

This welcome initiative to return Beavers to Scotland’s largest National Park was in response to Scottish Government actively encouraging supported range expansion of Beavers in Scotland.

Yesterday we became the third of the three initial release sites in the Cairngorms National Park to see Beavers returned.

The nature reserve includes parts of the river Spey and its floodplain which is a large area with a great mix of wet woodland and wet grassland. At times, due to dynamic flooding creating temporary pools and moving woody debris around, you could almost imagine that Beavers were already here. But the return of Beavers will greatly enhance these features which are so important to supporting a large range of wildlife.

There are also some really beneficial impacts we expect from Beavers that are entirely missing. No other animal gnaws down sizeable trees, conveniently selecting the quickly regenerating species, creating a varied woodland edge as well as allowing more sunlight to reach the floor encouraging a greater variety of plants to develop. This can be especially beneficial to rare insect and bird species that love these wetland and woodland edges, which is one of the most threatened habitats in recent history.

Somewhat reluctantly, I dare to admit that Beaver activity will most likely do better than any reserve management team would at increasing biodiversity and supporting wildlife on the nature reserve.

The process started almost a year ago, when we reached out to our neighbours with the idea of releasing Beavers, what that would mean for them and how we would monitor the Beavers and other wildlife. Many months and lots of hard work later, over the last two weeks we have been focusing on getting the release sites ready for our new arrivals. With the help of the National Park’s Junior Rangers and our volunteers, we have prepared piles of brash (small sticks for eating and building) and identified locations for remote cameras and feeding stations. The cameras should provide some lovely video clips but are also crucial for allowing us to assess how the Beavers are settling in and monitor their activity.

With all the preparations complete, we awaited release day watching the weather forecast closely to ensure conditions remained good.

Finally, the day arrived.

We could not have asked for better conditions, the weather was brilliant and the water levels were ideal. It was great to have some of the project team and volunteers who helped us with the preparations come along to witness the releases they have been working so hard to make happen.

The juvenile Beaver heading towards the water.

The release sites looked as if Beavers had lived there for a while already, and it was great to see them calmly coming out of their pens into their new home.

We released a new family group and it was lovely to see each of them exploring their surroundings, getting their fluffy fur all muddy and wet on the edge of the lochan.

I managed to film one of the Beavers swimming around with our new remotely controlled cameras, which will hopefully keep us up to speed with the movement of this Beaver family in the next couple of weeks.

We are only at the start of this new journey. We hope to release more Beavers onto the nature reserve in due course, so a stable population can establish on the nature reserve and in the Strath. We now have an amazing opportunity to be ambassadors for the work Beavers do.

 What a great moment for the nature reserve, and for Beavers in Scotland.

The male beaver taking his first sniff of his new home.

I am proud to be part of the local team that stepped up to promote the benefits of Beavers in the wider landscape and support local translocations.

However, none of this would have been possible without the support of many other people including The Beaver Trust whose expert advice and role releasing the Beavers have been key. We’d also like to thank additional support from the Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme through the Cairngorms Connect Partnership which allowed us to support the Cairngorms National Park Authority to bring beavers back.

Last, but definitely not least, we want to thank all our neighbours for their input. We are very aware that some concerns still exist about what living with Beavers will be like given they have been absent for 400 years. However, we do believe the environmental benefits that Beavers bring will be significant and hopefully the Park Authority’s commitment to supporting land managers and communities to live alongside beavers – including a dedicated management and mitigation plan - will help to alleviate some outstanding concerns. I have personally witnessed the return of Beavers in Flanders (Belgium) during my childhood, and that experience makes me feel confident people in Scotland will also be able to appreciate and benefit from their presence.  

Given the reserve is already mostly a wetland, the views visitors see from the hides is unlikely to change much. Over time, some signs of Beaver activity might be visible, but visitors (and staff and volunteers) are very unlikely to see Beavers especially as they are so skilled in melting into the landscape.

The best way to keep up to date with what the beavers have been up to is to follow the Cairngorms Connect and the Cairngorms National Park Authority on social media where we will share updates and clips from the remote cameras. In the future as Beavers settle into different locations in the park, there may well be opportunities to safely look for signs of Beavers and even Beavers themselves, watch this space!

We know that many people are eager to try to see our new neighbours sooner, but to give beavers the best chance of success we need to minimise disturbance. If you are visiting any of the release locations in the next wee while here’s how you can help:

- Give beavers and other wildlife space

- Be quiet and respectful

- Keep dogs under close control

- Stick to the paths

Insh Marshes is the second of our nature reserves where Beavers have been released after a family and a pair were released at Loch Lomond last year. You can read more about that here. 

All images (c) Beaver Trust