7 Replies to “Ralph Underhill cartoon”

  1. The following is from an interview given by Richard Benyon to the Angling Trust which was published in Nov 2012:

    Q. ‘Is releasing beavers as recommended by Natural England really a good idea?’

    A. ‘I am deeply sceptical about ‘re-wilding’ as a practice. Beavers can carry some particularly nasty diseases and cause a lot of damage. We are fully committed to removing barriers to fish migration and having proper management of the floodplain. Beavers are hardly likely to help us achieve these objectives’.

    That this man is the Minister responsible for biodiversity, simply beggars belief. It’s like putting Jim Royle in charge of social security payments.

  2. Introductions are poorly thought through. The argument that “we” need beavers to create pools is an example. JCBs can create pools without introducing yet more non-native species. I am, however, in favour of introducing wolves to cull the people who think this country is a good place for “introductions.” When introduced species become a problem because they have no predators in this country what is introduced to control them? Tigers are threatened in India, why not introduce them here to control the wolves that were introduced to control the beavers? I know, why not introduce Tiger hunting. Look at the situation with introductions such as himalayan balsam, japanese knotweed and giant hogweed. They have become uncontrollable. The same as the floating pennywort. Foreign species must be removed as they are turning habitats into a monoculture. If the strongest survives in nature our diversity will be lost. The same is true for invertebrates that are introduced to prey on other introduced invertebrates. What do they eat when their preferred meal is wiped out? Our native species. NE are not the best to decide what species should be in our country if they use knee-jerk responses to wildlife situations.

    1. Ok, Diapensia, are you actually Richard Benyon?

      PS beavers would be a RE-introduction of a NATIVE species – importantly different to all the examples you cite where problems have arisen from accidental alien species introductions, or indeed as Ralph Underhill slyly points out, alien pheasants. The return of native species by contrast is always (to my knowledge) associated with an increase in native biodiversity. For a textbook example you may wish to research what happened in Yellowstone following the reintroduction of the wolf there in the 1990s. You could start here:
      http://www.cof.orst.edu/leopold/papers/RippleBeschtaYellowstone_BioConserv.pdf

  3. Well said Hugh. There are good ecological reasons for reintroduction of Beaver, Lynx and Wolf to suitable places throughout the UK. Wolves it must be said have an undeserved bad press due to the past justification for its extinction and there are limited areas that both Wolf and Lynx could be released. They would both help with the deer problem in terms of both predation and causing behaviour change as in Yellowstone.

  4. I don,t live in america but I do agree that the species you mention could be introduced to london!

  5. Very worrying about Richard Benyon. Thank goodness things are so much better here in Scotland, where the government has taken the decision to monitor the Tay beavers and understands that they are highly beneficial to the environment – all aspects of wetland habitat including fish. Diapensia – I’m intrigued that you making a pond with a JCB is a better idea than reintroducing a native species that builds dams. Sadly JCB dug ponds rarely achieve the biodiversity of a beaver pond. We have both on our land so I have personal experience of this.
    A quick note on nativeness – it is to do with species evolving together over millions of years, which is the case with beavers and the native species of the British countryside. Its why willows coppice when cut, for example. 400 years of absence is not relevant in evolutionary time. This argument, which I have heard endlessly before from the opposition is an unfortunate one for them to take as it negates any chance that anyone who understands even a little biology or ecology will consider anything further they say to have any validity.

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