“Beaver bombing”, covertly releasing beavers into the countryside, is increasing in England because successive governments have not fulfilled promises to permit some planned wild releases, conservationists are warning.
Beavers now live freely on river systems across swaths of southern England, and conservationists are calling on Labour to allow official releases of free-living beavers and produce a national strategy to maximise the biodiversity and flood alleviation benefits delivered by the industrious mammals.
Eva Bishop, of the Beaver Trust, said: “Beavers are a native species with lots to offer in terms of landscape resilience, boosting biodiversity and climate change adaptation and mitigation. It would be crazy not to look at wild release as a key tool for the government.”
It’ll be a good test of the Labour government as they aren’t as influenced by the farming lobby. It’s reached the point that this needs a national plan and the benefits in flood amelioration will more than pay for the minimal cost of a body to survey beaver numbers and manage releases and rehoming.