Shropshire Beaver Project: Updates and questions

The Shropshire project aims to trial release of 2 beavers (or a family) within an enclosed site within Shrewsbury's Old River Bed nature reserve to assess the impact of these industrious mammals on an existing wetland site. The beavers will be monitored comprehensively by ecologists during the trial and the fence that will be installed to protect them has been specially designed to keep them on the site.

Below, we answer some of the big questions that might be on your minds regarding the release of beavers to the enclosure.

• The Old River Bed nature reserve is an enclosed catchment basin and is an existing wetland site that is protected for the wetland plants found there
• Beavers can make rivers less prone to flash floods, reducing flooding by holding water in ‘the right place’ in river headwaters, and enabling the slower release of water in drier periods
• A project with the University of Exeter in the River Otter has studied the impacts of beavers on water flows and hydrology in great detail. The preliminary results are remarkable and show that beavers tend to decrease flooding overall as their activity slows the flow rate of flowing water
• It is important to differentiate between the storage of water by beavers in river headwaters, and the impact of beavers on low lying land. In some places, culverts and drainage systems, some of which are critical to reducing flood risk, need to be kept clear of beaver debris
• In order to create habitat for themselves, and to store water upstream, beavers need to temporarily and seasonally flood areas of land to create beaver ponds. This can be managed so that they do this in areas where flooding is wanted

• Beavers are a “keystone species” which play an important role in restoring British wetland ecosystems. They naturally create resilient networks of prime wetland habitat, which in turn produces natural capital benefits such as flood relief and benefit a wide range of species including amphibians, fish and bats
• Beavers naturally engineer watercourses to create deeper water so they can escape from predators and explore their territories. Where there is no existing deep water, they will create pools using small dams
• There are habitats specifically created by beavers that are lacking in Britain, including beaver meadows, beaver dams and flooded wet woodland
• Beavers can play a key role in increasing woodland, wetland, open water and riparian vegetation and wildlife diversity
• Wetlands are some of the most important habitats for supporting wildlife (over half of the UK's wildlife depends on them) so their restoration is crucial to the restoration of a healthy living landscape

We all know that trees play a vital role in absorbing CO₂ from the atmosphere and help to combat climate change, but only when they grow in the right places. Wetlands actually store more CO₂ than woodlands, but if left unmanaged, the willow trees at the Old River Bed would soon outgrow other plants and would dry the site out and impact it's ability to store carbon. Beavers will help to control the growth of willows through natural coppicing, which means cycles of cutting back trees at their base. Willow trees are very fast growing and coppicing doesn't kill the tree: it simply controls their growth rate and fresh shoots soon appear from their bases.

The Shropshire Beaver Project has been made possible by experts and funders to whom we are extremely grateful. Thanks go to the funding partners including Severn Trent Water, Veolia Environmental Trust and Potter Group as part of the Landfill Communities Fund, Beaver Bridges and the John Ellerman Foundation as well as the generosity of Shropshire Wildlife Trust members and supporters. This has enabled the initial project and release of the beavers to become a reality.

The Old River Bed is currently managed using Shrewsbury Town Council funds, but the release of beavers will mean that this would no longer be required across the whole site.

Beavers are usually hard to spot as they come out at dusk and are usually safely tucked away in their lodges by the time the sun rises. The Old River Bed is a wetland site and the beaver enclosure will be difficult to access due to the boggy conditions. There will be an pedestrian boardwalk from one side of the Old River Bed to the other which will run along the outside of the enclosure fencing.

However, we do plan to organise guided visits to the site once the beavers are settled in and when we are confident that there are reliable spots for beaver viewing. Any planned supervised visits will be posted on our events pages and existing members of Shropshire Wildlife Trust will be be invited to VIP events in the future. Another good reason to become a member today!