Tom Bowser says beavers contribute to biodiversity

After an absence of around 400 years, beavers returned to our waters in 2001 through escapes from private enclosures. Though they’ve caused some landowners very real issues, they’ve also delivered incredible environmental gains.

Their deadwood-filled wetlands boost insect, bird and fish numbers, their dams trap sediment and run off, improving water quality downstream and mitigating against flooding. They represent a natural ally in an environmental crisis which is outpacing us all.

When their impacts are so great, it is perhaps little wonder that the animals divide opinion, however. Talk of catchment-level flood mitigation is of little consolation if you are the land manager whose land is flooded.

According to NatureScot, beaver numbers could reach 10,000 by 2030. While these numbers are comparatively small (12m Bavarians live alongside 23,000-24,000 beavers and 5.4m Norwegians alongside 80,000), the news has not played well in certain quarters.

Last week, NFUS issued a statement claiming that the Bute House Agreement had been a conduit for 'the hardening of the green agenda', giving 'cause for serious concern … for rural businesses.'

Commenting on beaver and white-tailed eagle management, NFUS president Martin Kennedy called for a 'pragmatic license application scheme for the removal of these species where their impacts on both business and biodiversity is clear.'

In light of these words, we wish to share some thoughts of our own. As union members who have beavers on our farm, we do this not to stoke division but to open honest dialogue between farmers and conservationists.

The war in Ukraine has brought international trade into sharp focus and led some to suggest that beavers threaten Scotland’s food security. Lethal control licenses have been issued almost exclusively for this reason. (The total number of beavers culled since 2019 [352] equates to just shy of 25% of the current population, estimated at 1500 animals.) On what evidence, one has to ask, are these food security claims based?

Will Scotland really starve because of beavers?

Of the crops grown in our country, 80% goes into animal feed and alcohol production. Meanwhile, a third of the food UK farmers produce is thrown away and 6bn meals’ worth is wasted annually before even making it off UK farms.

When so much food is wasted, so much land is used to produce crops that don’t directly feed people and with no forum to discuss what is produced where and in what quantity, how much remains in this country and how much is exported etc, how can anyone know how food secure Scotland is?

Let’s call a spade a spade. Labour shortages, cheap food culture and land use choices may present a threat to food security – beavers do not.

Nor are beavers, as NFUS suggested, a threat to biodiversity. A wealth of scientific research demonstrates that this species has an overwhelmingly positive influence on biodiversity.

What beavers may (and do) sometimes impact is the income of certain farmers. Martin Kennedy is correct here – farmers should not shoulder the capital costs of beavers.

The new Agriculture Bill must incentivise people to accommodate the animals. By following the example of Bavaria, creating riparian buffer zones and pulling farming back from the water’s edge, Scotland could eliminate 95% of its beaver issues.

Beyond that, the NatureScot beaver mitigation fund and translocation would still be there to help farmers suffering intractable beaver issues. Long-term, accommodating these animals is the only viable solution.

Killing, or translocating them merely creates a vacant territory – new beavers will move in, build their own lodges and dams. Government must make it easier for land managers to tolerate the animals that they have.

That such strategies aren’t in place already when the SNP has been in power since 2007 is hugely disappointing. It makes NFUS’ focus on the Scottish Green Party a little surprising, too. Are they really the villains here?

It should also be noted that NFUS signed up to Scotland’s 'Beaver Strategy'. They had more officials in those meetings than any other organisation. No arms were twisted.

The strategy existed to grow Scotland’s beaver population and to help farmers who cannot live alongside beavers, allowing animals to be trapped and relocated to more suitable locations. Lethal control remains as a last resort, but 'removal' needn’t always involve a bullet.

From 2021, we began rehoming beavers from such farms, releasing them into unfenced ponds on our land. Public pressure led to the policy change that made this possible. That pressure was a result of widespread horror at the number of beavers which could have been moved but were instead culled.

Since coming to Argaty, we have upped stock numbers. Beaver dams held water in a wet winter, preventing our steading from flooding (as it had in the past five winters), saving us hundreds of pounds in damage. Beavers have also become a valuable part of our ecotourism business.

Obviously, impacts will vary from farm to farm, but our experience shows that beavers need not inconvenience you or cost you money; you may find quite the reverse.

As land managers, we must face facts: 80% of our land mass is farmed and according to the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII), Scotland is the 28th most nature-depleted country in the world. The blame game helps nobody, but it’s clear where efforts to halt environmental decline must be focussed.

More than any other industry, farming relies on a healthy environment. Continue on the road we are travelling and the job may become impossible. Though they can cause issues, beavers and eagles are key components of a healthy ecosystem.

We must find ways to live alongside these animals.

For the sake of unity, can we conclude with a request to farmers and conservationists? Can we all agree that food production and wildlife are equally vital and seek ways to accommodate both?

Can we ignore the hyperbole and focus on the real barriers standing between us and this goal? Can we agree that in an environmental crisis a green agenda for government might be just what everyone, farmers included, needs?

* Tom Bowser is owner of a farm which houses the well-known attraction, Argaty Red Kites and author of A Sky Full of Kites: A Rewilding Story.