Conservation in Britain
Beavers are now living in London again – they have a clear job to do
Beavers cut down trees with their sharp teeth. But you can also do unspectacular things with the biters, like just eat an apple.
© Gareth Fuller / Picture Alliance
There have been no beavers in London for more than 400 years. Two specimens have now been released in the British capital. However, a lot is expected of the animals.
A short video on Twitter shows a historic moment: A light brown animal with long brown fur starts swimming in a stream in the most beautiful sunshine. The film, released by Enfield Borough Council in the north of the metropolis on Thursday, marks the end of a 400-year period when there were no beavers in London. Conservationists are excited.
In the future, two beavers, a male and a female, will make their rounds on a six-hectare site with small streams. The animals were also given a kind of work assignment: They should build dams and thus contribute to the natural river landscapes being created in the area again. So basically do what beavers do most of the time: cut down trees and build beaver lodges.
“Beaver back in London”, the “BBC” rejoiced. Both animals are two years old. They are intended to help ensure that near-natural habitats are created again along rivers. Because the water is filtered through the dams they have built up, and it flows more slowly. This reduces the risk of flooding – and in phases of prolonged drought, the water is even stored by the work of the animal builders. So beavers would be a typically British answer to the questions of climate change.
Beavers have a fenced-in territory in north London
Since this Thursday they have been exploring their territory in north London, which is fenced in and protected from the public. They are also observed by students from the environmental school Capel Manor College, which is responsible for the beaver settlement project together with the district of Enfield and is intended to document how the environment is changing as a result of the building activities of the large rodents.
However, since work isn’t everything in life, observers are already hoping for a beaver romance. Perhaps there will be offspring in the coming year, wrote the British press. The character of the two beavers should be different, the female is a little “less self-confident” than the male, according to the Enfield district.
Although there have been no beavers in London for the last four centuries, the animals have been back in other parts of Great Britain for some time, such as Scotland.
They had disappeared from many parts of Europe for a long time because they were heavily hunted. Both the fur and the meat were in great demand, as was the famous glandular secretion, the “cacabea”, from which all sorts of products were made, including fragrances.
In Germany, beavers have not only lived in rural areas for a long time, but also in metropolitan areas such as Berlin and Munich.
Swell: “BBC“, Citizen Zoo“Berlin morning post“
See the video: According to the city of Eppingen, the lake was created by the backwater of the dam on the small Hilsbach. For weeks, the rodents meticulously piled branches and kindling on top of each other and dammed up the water.