Beavers return to town after 400 years

Beavers have been reintroduced to a town's nature reserve after 400 years of absence.

A bonded pair of Eurasian beavers were released into an enclosure at the Old River Bed in Shrewsbury on Friday.

It is hoped they will help to maintain the area, which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The release is one of several undertaken across the UK in enclosed areas such as this. Campaigners want the animals to be introduced in the wild too.

"The major threat to the site is from willow scrub drying out the wetland habitat, so the idea of having the beavers in is that they will control that," said Jim Goldsmith, Shrewsbury Town Council's countryside and green spaces manager.The council owns the area, which covers about 13 hectares (32 acres). The beaver enclosure makes up about 8.5 hectares.

Several methods have been tried in the past to manage the scrub encroachment, including introducing longhorn cattle and using chainsaws to cut it back.

However, it is hoped the furry pair, who were transported to Shropshire from Scotland, could be the answer to keeping the space neat and tidy.

"I think having them in Shrewsbury is really exciting because it's an urban site, it's a site with housing on both sides, and it gives us an opportunity to give people the chance to interact with the beavers and see what they do on a local level," said Tom Freeland, Shropshire Wildlife Trust's head of nature reserves.

"The Old River Bed is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, it's really interesting for wildlife but it's quite hard to manage, because of it being regularly wet and difficult to graze and keep the trees from scrubbing over it so they'll help with that, they'll be natural managers of it.

"But it's also part of a wider national effort to get beavers back."

To allow the creatures time to settle in, the trust said the site's boardwalk and woodland footpath would be closed for about a week after the release.

The area will be monitored by both volunteers and camera traps.

"In the longer term we'd like to see wild releases of beavers and beavers available across the country," said Mr Freeland.

And, there's hope that one day there may be the appearance of beaver offspring.

"We know that they have had kits before, so we're confident that that will take place. There's plenty of room here," he told the BBC Radio Shropshire.

Mr Freeland added that it was unlikely that the public would see the beavers in the daytime.

"They tend to keep a relatively low profile, so you might be lucky."

"But what you should start to see is the impact that they're having."

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