FAQ: Will the beavers cause a lot of damage?
Beavers do modify their habitats through coppicing, feeding and in some cases damming (beavers living on lochs or large rivers have little need of dams), but this has a positive effect on biodiversity. Their modifications to their local environment bring enormous benefits to other species, including otters, water shrews, water voles, birds, invertebrates especially dragonflies, and breeding fish, creating more diverse habitats (there are 13 species of dragonfly in Knapdale and all will benefit from the beaver related habitat modification). In effect, they are a natural way of creating and maintaining habitats. Their dams can hold water in periods of drought, can regulate flooding and improve water quality by holding silt behind dams and catching acidic and agricultural run-off.
They do fell broad-leafed trees and bushes to eat bark in the winter and to build their dams. Most trees will be coppiced and will regenerate, which diversifies the surrounding habitat structure. Coppicing has been a normal process through most of history for bankside trees and the actions of beavers will make the woodland more natural. They normally forage close to water with activity concentrated within 20 m of the water’s edge.
Any occasional localised problems could be overcome by simple action, such as overflow piping and electric fencing. Beavers rarely eat conifers, although the odd conifer might be gnawed by an immature animal that has not learned that conifers are unpalatable and that its resin gums up their teeth. They do not live in water entirely surrounded by conifers.
This will be monitored as part of the scientific trial.
The beaver: keystone species of wet woodland and forest
