Like Lieutenant Frank Drebin, I am a great lover of a well-stuffed beaver. Until a decade ago, the medium of taxidermy was the simplest route by which one could see a Eurasian beaver in England. Castor fiber were hunted to extinction for their fur, meat and scent glands – originally used in castor oil, hence the name – and have been absent from our waterways since the 16th century.
But the dam has broken. A rogue release in the early 2010s saw beavers cropping up – somewhat incongruously – on the River Otter in Devon. Having planned to trap them, the then-government backed down after public protest and commissioned a report into the impact the sedulous infrastructure devotees were having. After five years of studying, the industrious aquatic rodents got a thumbs up.
Yes, there were downsides. Farmland was waterlogged, and paths were blocked by trees the beavers had felled. But the study found that these negative impacts were more than outweighed by the beavers protecting homes from flooding, cleaning up water supplies and working in harmony with fish, birds and voles. New habitats were created, and the trout in the pools their dams had created were bigger.
This good news prompted a wave of beaver fever among Conservative ministers. After asking his environmentalist father to release some on his estate, Boris Johnson promised to ‘Build Back Beaver’ at the 2021 Conservative Party conference, seeing in them fellow enthusiasts for grand projets. Michael Gove had already brought about a beaver release trial back during his Defra renaissance.
But as with so much of those long 14 years, while ministers talked a great game about their desire to reintroduce beavers across the land, the planned new licensing regime to allow their release never quite materialised. While Natural England beavered away on the specifics, ministers were content to grant them protected status back in 2022, making it illegal to kill them or damage their habitats.
Nonetheless, even with the change in government, a new dawn for the English beaver seemed inevitable. But – disaster! Even after the plans had been signed off by Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary so beloved by our farming community, Natural England’s work was reported to have been flushed down the drain by Number 10. Beavers were considered too much of a ‘Tory legacy’ issue.
Fortunately, upsetting a quango was too much for Keir Starmer to stomach, especially once the ‘Daily Star’ splashed an irritated beaver on their cover. Last week, it was reported that the plans were back on to allow nature groups to apply for licences for release. The first beavers could be making their way back into our waterways this autumn, legally this time.
Apparently, Starmer was convinced to go ahead with Defra’s plan after the department convinced Number 10 that beavers could be part of his Chancellor’s much-vaunted growth mission. The Prime Minister has spoken of his desire to get infrastructure built faster. This is a cause close to beavers’ hearts. They recently saved the Czech government £1 million by constructing a dam. Beavers 1, blockers 0.
Such undiluted Yimbyism should warm the heart of every CapX reader. But even if the spirit of the Castor Fiber can be co-opted to end our national stagnation, this plan still possesses perils for the Government. As cute as the beavers are, their reintroduction has prompted growing unease among some of those very same farmers Starmer has already upset with his inheritance tax changes.
Last week, Tom Bradshaw, the president of the National Farmers’ Union, demanded the right for his members to cull beavers if they become disruptive. He said what he labelled ‘the final control method’ was essential if beavers built in a way that flooded farmers’ arable land. But now beavers are a protected species, even getting a licence for removing an inconveniently placed dam is a hassle.
Inevitably, the reintroduction of beavers to an environment long-since adapted to their absence will bring beaver-human conflict. They may be ‘ecosystem engineers’, but their enthusiasm for felling trees, burrowing canals and flooding riverbanks is a natural challenge to the crop-maximising plans of farmers. Beaver fever can be a headache for those who want the countryside strictly ordered.
But learning to live alongside the beaver again should not be beyond the whit of our farmers. Should populations explode or become too difficult to manage through non-lethal means, a cull should remain as potential last resort, as is the case on the continent. But it seems overly harsh on a species that is not only vegetarian but can bring more benefit to our farmers than anything else Labour has offered.
As Kitty Thompson has meticulously highlighted, the state spends billions of pounds every year on fighting flooding. But only 1% of the Environment Agency’s overall flood budget goes on natural solutions. Beaver dams can slow the flow of water downstream by up to 60%, creating wetlands and alleviating low river water levels in summer, reducing both flooding and drought risks.
Of course, as helpful as the beaver might be to the hard-pressed taxpayer, they are their own animals. If a farmer does find flooding on his land due to a new rodent resident, our post-Brexit farm payments system should be used to compensate for their contribution to supporting rewilding. With a proper licensing regime, farmers can maximise the financial benefits of backing beavers.
In which case, man and beaver can learn to co-exist in harmony. Johnson’s vision can manifest as an Anglofuturist smorgasbord of Homo-Castor co-operation. They handle the dams, we’ll watch the skies. It might have taken Labour to deliver it, but the reintroduction of the beaver is a total Tory triumph. The clock can go back a single second – or even half a millennium.
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