BOOK REVIEW - Bringing Back the Beaver by Derek Gow
I first heard about efforts to rewild Britain's waterways with beavers on the podcast Let's Learn Everything (episode 9 - it's still one of my favourites!), in what turned out to be a humerous and in many ways heartwarming story. Two sets of beavers were trialled in Scotland in the late 2000's to 2015 - those in Knapdale and those in Tayside. The twist? The Tayside beavers were unplanned, unlicensed, and escaped from a local enclosure to make their home downriver. Following much campaigning by various groups, the issuance of licenses to shoot beavers which mayyybe shouldn't have been issued, and some bad publicity following the death of a beaver brought into captivity, they were allowed to stay. They became a second study group, as scientists tracked their habits and learned how beavers' natural inclination to fell trees, strip bark, and build dams altered the British wetland environments downstream.
It sounded like a heartwarming tale, for the most part. But what the science from LLE leaves out is the international collaboration, many previous attempts at reintroduction, and the shadowy, unseen politics of beaver reintroduction.
Derek is someone for whom native species reintroduction has become a lifelong calling. A farmer and conservationist, he has spent his life enthralled by nature - his mention of Gerald Durrell's influence on his life brought back vivid memories of my own childhood, lying on the floor reading My Family and other Animals that I'd borrowed from my mother's bookshelf - and he's turned that passion into a concerted effort to help reintroduce many species into Britain that have been lost for hundreds of years.
Where my podcast habits focus on the science, Gow tends to focus more on the politics. He describes the many ways beavers can revitalise British landscapes, it's true, but the primary thrust of the book is the struggles to uphold or even begin trial reintroductions. The many times he's spoken with politicians who've been all for bringing back the beaver, only to change their mind once the Angling Trust or DEFRA's bureaucrats got in the way and insisted that no, the public did not want beavers in their rivers - often to a background of the public saying that actually yes, they would quite like beavers back in their rivers, thank you very much.
It comes across as absurd - stories of grumpy beavers going for Derek's ankles when they're released into quarantine; the many obstructive tactics of DEFRA, up to and including calling the police on beaver reintroduction ceremonies; and one memorable incident where an ecologist showed a group of fundraisers how to sex a beaver - but there's the constant undercurrent of love for this animal.
And frustration. The difficulties include finding suitable locations to trial reintroductions, which must meet the approval of a triumvirate of groups with opposing goals - the politicians, who want people's votes next election; the Angling Trust, who don't want them anywhere near their rivers; and the beavers themselves, who need good trees, insects, and some water for them to dam up so they don't die. There are the government groups, who really shouldn't be getting involved but end up doing so anyway. And then there are the individuals in power, who often don't want beavers back for reasons which have nothing to do with the beavers themselves. The kind of people who go out to the countryside of a weekend to go grouse shooting or fox hunting, and don't want beavers because... there might be less countryside for them to hunt in? In many cases, the hoops Gow and other conservationists must jump through are ludicrous at best, and maliciously obstructive at worst.
But that's not to say there isn't hope. As with all my nature books this year, Bringing Back the Beaver ends on a high note. It finishes with the Knapdale and Tayside introductions, alongside some wild beavers which were spotted in Devon. Amidst outcry, the proposal for Tayside and Devon was almost identical, two years removed - the beavers must go. It took protests, direct action, and years of work before the government relented, and the beavers, by popular decree, were allowed to stay.
But they remained. The tide of public opinion has shifted in the last two decades, from one of fear and anger, to one of joy and love. People want beavers back. Bringing Back the Beaver demonstrates that we can return extinct species back into their niches as keystones of ecological activity, if only we put in the work. The biggest hurdle is bureaucracy, and once the effort is started, the wheel soon turns.
Once again, it's a book about love. And hope. But mainly, politics. Oh, and beavers. Beavers and politics.
