Illegal beavers causing ‘widespread damage’

BEAVERS illegally released into the wild have caused widespread damage by felling trees, damming rivers and flooding fields, gamekeepers claimed yesterday.

Pictures released by the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) show trees gnawed through and a section of the River Kerbit, a tributary of the Tay, dammed with a mound of vegetation and branches, raising the water level by one foot.

There are an estimated 100 beavers now living in the Tay since they were released.

The Scottish Government, which is trialling the reintroduction of beavers in a contained experiment in Knapdale, said it would not attempt to remove the animals from the Tay.

But the SGA says the extensive damage it has documented on the Tay shows what will happen across Scotland if plans to reintroduce the animal go ahead.

A spokesman said: “What people have to realise is that by 2015, when the Knapdale trial ends, the numbers of illegally released beavers in Tayside may have doubled.

“The Knapdale trial in Argyll is being conducted under controlled conditions. In Tayside there is no control.”

In Tayside, the beavers have caused “significant damage to forestry”, said the spokesman.

The dams created by the beavers have caused rivers to flood, causing severe damage to the property of one Angus farmer, said the spokesman.

“The swamped fields are impossible to cultivate,” he said. “These river floods lead to a direct economic loss.