The return of the beaver

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2020

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2009, beavers were released into the wild in the Knapdale forest on the west coast of Scotland, some 400 years after they were wiped out in the UK. The Scottish Beaver Trial was the first official beaver re-introduction programme in the UK and was considered a landmark conservation project. The beaver is seen as a keystone species which can help shape and restore the environment. Alex Last spoke to Simon Jones, who was then the project manager of the Scottish Beaver Trial.

Photo: A beaver in Knapdale in 2011 © Steve Gardner (courtesy of the Scottish Wildlife Trust)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:40.0	Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Alex
0:44.6	Last.
0:45.8	And today we go back to 2009 in a major conservation experiment in Scotland when Beavers were
0:52.1	officially reintroduced to the UK some 400 years after they were
0:57.1	hunted to extinction. It was a complete landmark day in conservation history in the UK.
1:09.0	Beavers are being reintroduced to the wild in Scotland after an absence of 400 years.
1:13.6	Several young beaver families have been reintroduced to a loch in Argyle
1:17.7	where conservationists hope they'll settle and breathe.
1:20.7	It was the first ever formal reproduction of a mammal anywhere in the UK. It was a big deal.
1:27.0	In 2009, Simon Jones of the Scottish Wildlife Trust was then the project manager for the Scottish Beaver
1:34.8	trial in Napdale on the west coast of Scotland.
1:38.9	It was the first attempt to study what would happen if Eurasian beavers were reintroduced into the wild in the UK
1:46.2	some four centuries after they were wiped out.
1:50.6	I was involved in a release myself and the animal. It came out of the crate and rather than staying in a little artificial lodge that had been created, it just swam straight out into the lock and so, you know, if you can imagine a typical Scottish lock, if you have
2:06.4	been lucky enough to see one cloaked in a forest of oak and rowing trees and birch and alder and water lilies floating over it and it's a black, dark, brown colored water.
2:20.0	And it's been like that for hundreds of years and then this animal
	...

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