Beavers released at two sites in Somerset to help restore river and wetland

Evening Standard

Beavers have been legally released at two sites in Somerset as part of efforts to restore a river and wetland.One release involved a mother and her three children, while the other involved a pair of Eurasian beavers.They were released across the National Trust’s Holnicote Estate on Exmoor in Somerset on Tuesday.Beavers became extinct in Britain more than 400 years ago due to hunting for their pelts, meat and glands.Conservationists had long called for licensed wild returns to the English countryside, to boost wildlife in the UK.After years of wild reintroduction trials in the UK beavers were given legal protection in 2022.

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00:23They're being reintroduced back into the UK, so there's a healthy population in Scotland.

00:28There's some wild in English rivers already, and what we're doing at Hunnicutt here is helping to bring that species

00:35back.

00:36They're a protected species now, helping to bring them back, but in a managed way.

00:39So working with local land managers, working with the local community.

00:43Beavers are an ecosystem engineer, so the method to the madness is that beavers will maintain and develop and enhance

00:52the natural function within the river systems,

00:54develop more of this wetland, great for wildlife, great for climate, great for local communities.

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