Born to be Wild!
Beavers breed at Kent reserve
After eight years, Kent Wildlife Trust’s Eurasian beavers - a former native species driven to extinction by human over-hunting for their fur and meat nearly four hundred years ago - have made a comeback!
The Trust re-introduced beavers originally from Norway and more recently, in 2008, from Bavaria to help restore and maintain Kent’s last old fenland habitat at Ham Fen, near Sandwich.
The Bavarian beavers have produced at least one, possibly as many as three young this spring. The beavers are nocturnal and secretive with their young, which makes it difficult to be absolutely certain at this point as to how many ‘kits’ have been produced.
John McAllister, the Trust’s Reserves Officer for East Kent, said: "Significantly, they are the first to be born in a natural environment in the British Isles since the species was hunted to extinction here, so we are immensely proud of this unique conservation success."
Kent Wildlife Trust, with support from Natural England and the Wildwood Trust, re-introduced the beavers as a conservation ‘management tool’ in 2001 to help restore wetland habitats through their natural behaviour of coppicing bank-side trees, dam building to create pools, grazing which helps keep water-courses open and free flowing, and excavating channels. All of which diversifies the fenland habitat to the benefit of a much wider range of plant and animal species.
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