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Beaver reintroduction success.

The otters at Symonds Yat seemed to wait till evening to come out but would swim right past you and didn’t mind being spotlighted with the headtorch. Like Graham said, as big as dogs as well.
 
Reintroduced with great success (NOT) around here. Not a river in sight, just a tiny brook that goes from 3" normal to over 5 ft a few weeks ago.

They cut down so many trees you wouldn't believe it, mainly to get vehicles and materials in. Built ugly high wire fencing around a large area, no brook but some pretty stagnant looking large puddles. We found a severed deer's leg hanging on a fence one day, poor thing didn't make it in it's leap over the fence, very distressing for children walking around hoping to see the beavers.

Ah, the beavers. Introduced a male and a female, the female killed the male. Later they introduced a second male, unfortunately he went the same way. Maybe the female was actually crossed with a Bully XL?

Since then people have lost interest, nobody ever sees any. What a complete waste of time effort and money just to tick a conservation box in local council's misguided chambers. What wonderful people we are (NOT).
 
Christian Tyroll said:
Sounds a nightmare. SSSI's as a designation and management tool seem to be failing horribly, mirroring the overall situation on conservation in England and Wales. Too much time worrying about beavers and otters and not enough addressing catastrophic insect decline and all the rest of it.
Click to expand...

Agree with your point about SSSI's failing. Seems to be going from bad to worse. A crude policy instrument and a good example of the law of unintended consequences.

I must take issue with your last point. All the major conservation NGO's (GWCT, Rspb, WT's etc) have been banging the drum about habitat loss and insect declines for decades. The problem they have faced is that for the greater part of this time, Governments just haven't been interested in addressing these issues and have been wedded to agricultural and land use policies that have unintentionally acted as the catalyst for driving these declines.

In comparison relatively insignificant resources have been directed into species recovery programs specifically for otters (almost nothing), and more recently beavers. The latter btw have been found to significantly increase invertebrate life.
 
Joe Winstanley said:
Agree with your point about SSSI's failing. Seems to be going from bad to worse. A crude policy instrument and a good example of the law of unintended consequences.

I must take issue with your last point. All the major conservation NGO's (GWCT, Rspb, WT's etc) have been banging the drum about habitat loss and insect declines for decades. The problem they have faced is that for the greater part of this time, Governments just haven't been interested in addressing these issues and have been wedded to agricultural and land use policies that have unintentionally acted as the catalyst for driving these declines.

In comparison relatively insignificant resources have been directed into species recovery programs specifically for otters (almost nothing), and more recently beavers. The latter btw have been found to significantly increase invertebrate life.
Click to expand...

I completely agree with what you've said. Perhaps my comment was a little flippant, it came from a place of apathy having worked in rural land management/ forestry and peatland restoration for the last ten years. Throughout my time working I haven't seen us more than blink when it comes to addressing damaging agricultural and land use policies, which is obviously the bulk of the issue. I acknowledge on a local scale there are tons of great projects taking place. I think my comment was really trying to say (although poorly expressed) that conservation projects in England and Wales are barely scratching the surface but lets not worry too much as we've got a few more cuddly animals. It all just comes down to money at the end of the day doesn't it.

I have to be honest I've stopped paying any attention to ELMS or whatever is going on at the moment, I no longer work in a job in which it will affect my day to day and I found keeping up with the proposed changes pretty depressing. Hopefully in the time I've not been paying attention you'll be able to tell me that what's being rolled out will have a meaningful impact on farming/ land use.

I also acknowledge the point on beavers and invertebrate life and almost caveated that in my post, a bit like trees I think its, 'the right beaver in the right place'. Which a bit like trees will probably mean something different for everyone.
 
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