It has been brought to my attention that there is a report, commissioned by Natural England, entitled Revised Disease Risk Analysis for the Conservation Translocation of the Eurasian Beaver (Castor fiber) to England, 2021. This report discusses, I gather, the potential for introduced Beavers to spread diseases to other Beavers, other widlife, domestic stock and people and, as such, is a sensible thing to have commissioned.
Whether the report itself is sensible is impossible to say without it being published and open to scrutiny by many different experts. Natural England have not yet published the report and the plans for it being published are unclear. And yet it exists, and will without doubt be influencing the decisions of NE who have a stranglehold on the reintroduction of Beavers into our inland waters.
I’m not an expert on diseases but I’d like to scrutinise the report and so I have asked Natural England for a copy as an Environmental Information request. You could too by asking nicely for it [email protected]
I don’t know the details of this report but in general, I do know that asking a bunch of vets to tell you all the things that might go wrong with a reintroduction is a bit like asking a bunch of lawyers to tell you all the things that might go wrong with you speaking your mind – they treat it as a test of their ingenuity and come up with a very long and scary list. The right thing to do is to ask what, realistically are the sensible rules to adopt, since you are going to reintroduce Beavers/speak your mind whatever they say. The two approaches give you very different responses.
This is a question of balance. Cattle, gamebirds, people, pigs, poultry, pets, racing pigeons and other creatures are moved around the country more or less ad lib (bar the occasional lockdown under extreme circumstances) and nobody gets het up about it. Let’s put NE in charge of cattle movements and see what they do with that. But all those things are linked to making money, rather than making our ecology better. Why is it that wildlife is so often feared and suppressed?
Folk much closer to this issue than I am think that NE is paralysed into inactivity by a thorough disease risk analysis in which the word ‘high’ often features, yet the risks are not of great consequence even if quite likely.
Let’s see the secret report, and have a wider discussion in the context of the lack of movement restrictions imposed on money-making enterprises. Anyway, I’m keen to see the ‘secret’ report and come to some sort of judgement myself, informed by the views of a wide variety of experts. I know a few vets who I could ask about the report.
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I’d be happy to look at the risk assessment at some stage, Mark. Let’s hope it gets published soon. The difference in risk appetite between parts of Defra is huge; cattle, sheep and pigs are moved by the thousands every day with little thought to disease risk. On the other hand, propose to move 6 lynx or 3 beavers and the reaction is similar to what you’d expect if you proposed setting up a leper colony in Tunbridge Wells. It almost as if there was a mindset against the whole notion of reintroductions. But that can’t be the case, can it?
Alick – thasnks, I thought you’d be interested.
Secret reports making public policies, this is a very normal country.
And exactly what is their opinion on allowing 60 million game birds to roam around the country, particularly at a time of high bird flu instances.
‘Nope, no risk at all there sir’.
One is just amazed that NE have got nothing better to do with their time. Sure there may be a remote possibility beavers could introduce a disease but that is true of any animal (and human eg Covid) movement. As beavers are rodents any disease is probably likely to affect rats more than any other animal. One almost despairs at times.
I really do think that this Westminster Government is determined to do nature down at every possible twist and turn.
Thank goodness they are only primarily responsible for England and that Scotland and Wales have more sympathetic, though not brilliants, governments with better attitudes towards nature.
Sadly NE ceased long ago to be independent of mind and work schedule those things are largely governed by DEFRA, much of their policy is set by the CA and NFU. I think this is a travesty but I’m hardly surprised given the resistance to just about any reintroduction that might change the current sad status quo, just look at the appalling attitude to the killing and investigation of two White Tailed Eagles by a local Tory MP. Such sad, ignorant views are widespread and the norm in government and the wider countryside think of how many farmers and land owners can name or find any non game wildlife in their fiefdoms, very few. Even country folk are far removed from nature and this and our sad, safe, manicured, largely wildlife free countryside is both the result and cause. As you say Scotland and Wales are governed slightly better but it is only slightly, here in Wales the Senedd seems quite happy that vast swathes of our countryside are reseeded green deserts for sheep, an industry which barely pays its way, where rewilding is a dirty word and the idea re-introductions creates a hysteria of objections.
“As beavers are rodents any disease is probably likely to affect rats more than any other animal”
If this is true is the converse also true? I’m thinking of such delights as Weil’s disease, Hantavirus, and from this week’s reports – Lassa fever.
This is a very old ploy. Before the official beaver reintroduction at Knapdale a retired vet was spouting off about how the beaver could transmit disease to domestic livestock. It really is pathetic and as so many others have pointed out displays the most blatant double standards. If there really is a high risk of disease it’s most likely to come from plundering wildlife for ‘medicine’ and industrial farming, vast numbers of pigs, chickens, cattle kept in unnaturally high numbers in close proximity. Both of these are almost designed to create and bring new diseases into the human sphere, ones we have no natural immunity to and which will spread like wildfire. But let’s point at beavers. Pathetic, truly pathetic.
Natural England have just sent me this link:
http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/5166201358778368
As an alternative, an examination of the same risk, published several years ago by Scottish Natural Heritage to inform the official beaver trial will likely explore the same issues and risks.
One might enquire of NE quite why the money was spent duplicating recent, freely available, previous work.