SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT VOTE A BLOW TO ENDING BEAVER DEATHS
The Scottish Rewilding Alliance welcomes the attempt by Mark Ruskell MSP to amend the Animals & Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Bill to require the government ensure ‘favourable conservation status’ for Scotland’s beavers before issuing lethal control licences.
The attempted amendment followed the announcement by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) on 28 May 2020 that 87 beavers – one-fifth of the country’s total population of 450 – had been killed under licences issued by SNH between May-December 2019.
Scottish Rewilding Alliance is disappointed that the amendment, voted on by the Scottish Parliament yesterday, failed. Serious questions have been raised in the last couple of weeks by Scottish Rewilding Alliance members about the effect of government policy on the natural expansion of the Tayside beaver population and its genetic viability in light of the extensive licensed culling that has taken place.
Steve Micklewright, Convenor of the Scottish Rewilding Alliance, said: “For beavers to have a secure future in Scotland, the number of rivers in which they live and their total population must both be allowed to increase. Instead of killing beavers, relocating them to rivers where they are welcome by the community would ensure they deliver the biodiversity and climate change benefits Scotland so desperately needs.”.
James Nairne, trustee of Scottish Wild Beaver Group, said: “Incorporating this amendment into the Animals and Wildlife Bill would have helped secure Scotland’s protected beaver population against the excessive licensed killing that occurred in 2019. If Scotland is to realise its biodiversity ambitions, the government needs to start relocating Tayside beavers to suitable new habitat in Scotland where their multiple environmental benefits can be put to good use“.
The Scottish Rewilding Alliance is a collaboration of organisations wanting to enable rewilding at a scale new to Scotland, including by working in partnership with landowners, communities, interest groups and government. The Alliance’s goal is a flourishing ecosystem that supports self-sustaining nature-based economies and helps secure a future for local communities. See www.rewild.scot.
ENDS
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As things stand in Scotland essentially any landowner/farmer who doesn’t want beavers on their property can get a licence to kill one pretty much on request – and I wonder how many that have might have done so at the urging of those in the rabidly anti beaver huntin, fishin, shootin set. If they’re very lucky the beavers might instead be trapped and translocated to one of a burgeoning number of trial beaver releases in England. Meanwhile moving any to a spot in Scotland like Insh Marshes RSPB where they’d help conserve waders and reduce downstream flood risks is still illegal. This is ludicrous and obscene.
I think this raises some much bigger questions – not that Beavers should be killed to protect potatoes growing in the floodplain, but rather should we be growing potatoes in the floodplain when the whole system that allows it results on rushing water into our towns and cities. Everyone knows the aerial pictures of Tewksbury Abbey on the river Severn surrounded by water so when I was in the area last year I investigated a bit – and have a very nice series of photos from just upstream of the Abbey with riverside potato fields protected by embankments – which rush the water downstream to surround the Abbey and flood people’s houses.