The reintroduction of beavers in Wales may have surprising benefits, says charity
The environmental charity, Wildlife Trust Wales, believes the reintroduction of beavers could benefit humans and natural habitats
Beavers were once widespread across the Wales, but due to over hunting by humans for their fur, meat and scent glands they became extinct after the Middle Ages in Wales and by the end of the 16th Century they were extinct from the rest of Britain.
The environmental charity, Wildlife Trust Wales, believes the reintroduction of beavers could benefit humans and natural habitats.
They are known as a ‘keystone species’ because their activities can benefit a wide range of other animals and plants that live in rivers and wetlands.
Alicia Leow-Dyke, the Welsh Beaver Project Officer for the North Wales Wildlife Trust, said:
"The Welsh Beaver Project has been running for a long time now, since 2005 and the start of the project was looking at the feasibility of reintroducing beavers back into Wales and looking at various different sites.
"Then more recently we've been looking at certain sites for looking at sort of bringing beavers back.
"We already have some beavers living in enclosures.
"There's four enclosed projects in Wales currently with beaver families and there are some beavers popping up in the wild already that have kind of just turned up.
"There are some concerns and that's understandable particularly sort of people living near rivers and land owners such as farmers.
"So beavers are known for building dams and the reason beavers do that is if they're in an area where there's shallow water, they like nice deep water to feel nice and safe so they'll build a dam to raise the water level and that kind of protects their home also means they can be nearer to a new food supply.
"Some people have concerns that those dams will block the flow of water and they're worried at the same time that the dams might cause flooding but actually it just slows the water down.
"There's ways to mitigate against some of those activities of beavers, you can modify the dams or install devices in them to restore the flow of water.
"In terms of some of the benefits, scientists have looked at water flow, and they found actually by slowing the flow of water, it could help with reducing the risk of downstream flooding.
"So potentially beavers could be really beneficial for humans and beneficial for other wildlife as well.
"Studies have shown where you have beavers, you generally have an increase in biodiversity lots of other wildlife around, and that's because of the activities of beavers.
"By building dams, creating areas of water, great for amphibians, reptiles, birds, particularly ducks, for example, the water fowl, aquatic invertebrates.
"People are sometimes worried about tree felling by beavers, but they're not going to clear-felling an area. They do it randomly, but they will leave trees intact.
"But studies are showing that the trees that they do cut down will grow back again. Those trees will then put lots of growth into their roots and create new shoots.
"You're not actually losing the trees, you're actually getting a lot healthier trees, which can then help stabilise riverbanks.
"There's lots of knock-on benefits from having beavers."