Tracking the fascinating history of beavers in Britain and looking to the future

UNTIL recently, ‘beaver tales’ were just that. Legend and folklore with facts faded over countless human generations and spanning around half a millennium. That said, the legend lived on and persisted in both the language and attire of the British Isles. 

But all of a sudden we can’t get enough of the real thing; a once-native, semi-aquatic rodent. 

Beaver reintroductions are happening all over the British Isles, and at such rate it is difficult to keep up. 

Much of the public appear favourable to these developments, but not everywhere and everyone is offering an unqualified welcome for the return of the Eurasian beaver.

A language evolution 

Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) has been absent from Britain for a long time – so long that it’s impossible to pin down the date when the last animal was seen roaming a watery landscape. The best guess is sometime in the 16th century, with the species having all but disappeared from Europe by the 18th. 

However, the native beaver is now well and truly back – and with a vengeance. Indeed, such is the rush to reintroduce the species that it is becoming near impossible to pin-point all the areas of the British Isles where beavers are set to roam. However, don’t run away with the idea that the ‘British beaver’ is well and truly wild, because the only authentically wild populations at the present time are on the River Otter in Devon, England, and the River Tay in Scotland.

Ironically, these are the two areas where beavers were probably released illegally but allowed to remain by the respective authorities in England (Natural England) and Scotland (NatureScot). In other areas where beavers are now released both officially and legally, including Essex, Norfolk and Nottinghamshire, the beaver ‘families’ are kept within enclosed areas.

Beaver lingo

Perhaps one of the most fascinating things about beavers is that, despite their long absence from the British Isles, the Eurasian beaver was apparently not forgotten. Indeed this native, semi-aquatic rodent has left a lasting influence on our language, culture and attire. 

For an erstwhile native mammal that probably disappeared when a Tudor monarch was on the English throne, the beaver left indelible marks on our culture. The English language has remained peppered with beaver-related idioms like ‘busy as a beaver’, ‘work like a beaver’, ‘beavering away’, ‘busy little beaver’ and ‘eager beaver’, all related to the beaver’s industrious and hard-working attributes in tree-felling and dam-building. 

‘Beaver meadow’ describes a whole new environmental dimension which remains after the beavers have left their creation and is caused by significant accumulations of silt and decaying matter in the beaver pond created by beaver dam construction. As the pond drains due to natural seepage or a break in the dam, a sedge or grass-covered field called a beaver meadow is formed. However, there is a suspicion the term was coined first in North America.

While researching this subject in November 2021 I discovered that ‘beaver moon’ refers specifically to a November full moon, because that was the month when beavers took shelter in their lodges to prepare for winter. It was also the time when beaver hunting peaked, presumably because the animals were easy prey at this time. 
Beaver attire 

Hats made from felted beaver fur became popular in the mid-16th century and remained so for 300 years. Popularity came from the soft yet resilient fur which was easily combed to make a variety of hats. Beaver hats declined in popularity during the early to mid-19th century when pelts and fur dwindled as beavers became extinct in a succession of European countries due to hunting.

However, when it came to dress and fashion ‘beaver’ was used to describe something altogether more organic and basic than a felted hat. That was the full male beard, becoming popular in the 1800s and sported by famous faces like Karl Marx, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln (and the not-so-famous, too).

‘Beaver beards’ were popular until the 1920s when a certain mockery and a sudden craze for a game called ‘Beaver’ came in. Two or more people walking down a street would play a 20-point game of beaver counting. The first to cry ‘Beaver’ at the sight of a beard won a point. White beards (known as ‘polar beavers’) and other distinguished sorts of beards had higher values. 

Charles Darwin with his famous beard (Image: Archant)

All self-respecting ‘beavers’ beat a hasty retreat to the barber who took a cut-throat razor to the excess facial hair. By 1924 the game was over for beavers and players alike.

Only King George V, distinguished foreigners and a few Chelsea pensioners were left sporting a beaver, which like the real thing, became extinct.

During university vacations in the late 1960s, I worked for the local council in various roles, including assistant to the local park keeper. Those were the days when parks departments produced all their own bedding plants in their own greenhouses. The job included seeding, planting and managing flower beds, shrubberies and light tree work, including dead-wooding and trimming epicormic growth at a time when neatness and tidiness was everything. This included veteran and ancient English elm trees, because those were the days before DED (Dutch elm disease) struck in earnest. 

The park keeper was a WWI veteran called George Haynes, already well past retiring age at a time when local authorities were desperately short of workers. We started early at 6.30 am and a few minutes before 10 am George would say: “I think we deserve our beaver,” on which we retired to the shed for a flask of tea and a bacon sarnie. 

I always assumed the expression related to us having ‘worked like beavers’, but the derivation of George’s description for our morning break could be something entirely different. Apparently ‘bever’ is an archaic word used to describe a snack or light refreshment between main meals, thought to originate from the Anglo-Norman ‘bever’ meaning a drink – and hence the modern term ‘beverage’. However, ‘bever’ is also documented as an obsolete form of the word ‘beaver’.

Not right for Wight? 

Plans are afoot to reintroduce beavers to the Isle of Wight. (Image: Plans are afoot to reintroduce beavers to the Isle of Wight.)

The Isle of Wight (IOW) welcomed the white-tailed eagle with open arms after an absence of almost 250 years, but the holiday isle is not so eager about the Eurasian beaver. 

Those were the vibes from a recent meeting attended by more than 70 farmers and landowners to discuss the impact of the possible reintroduction of beavers onto the farmed landscape. 

If successful, it will be the first time beavers have burrowed into riverbanks and whittled down willows on the Isle of Wight since the 1600s and possibly earlier.

Organised by the National Farmers Union (NFU), the meeting took place in early April, after Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust (HIWWT) launched a consultation on a beaver reintroduction project which has identified the island’s Eastern Yara River as a possible suitable habitat.

Representatives of the wildlife trust informed farmers and landowners about mitigating measures to manage the effects of beaver activity on farmland, including the erection of electric fencing around crop areas and reinforcement of riverbanks with stone or galvanised mesh to discourage burrowing by beavers.

Farmers and landowners were understandably concerned about the costs involved, with NFU chairwoman Robyn Munt stating it was unclear who would be picking up the tab of mitigating measures in the long term and saying how the HIWWT needs to show its preparedness and ability to assume responsibility for covering such costs during a five- or 10-year licensing period. 

The meeting was joined online by farmers from the catchment area of the River Tay in Scotland and farmers from the Stour Valley in Kent, who shared their experiences on living with populations of wild beavers. 

Using photographic evidence, they described the significant damage caused by beavers to low-lying arable land, similar to the Isle of Wight’s Arreton Valley. They also cited damage to public access routes, which immediately raised the question about who would be responsible and culpable for any injury sustained if burrowing activity by beavers led to the collapse of public footpaths and bridleways crossing farmers’ land.

One thing to come out of the meeting, clearly important in the wider countrywide context, was the NFU’s request to government for a national beaver policy, with those managing beaver projects to take complete responsibility for long-term costs including an exit strategy. The NFU is also requesting that every beaver project which is established has a steering group on which there is farmer representation. 

A sight set to become more common? (Image: A sight set to become more common?)

It’s abundantly clear why the NFU is moving in this direction. Beaver reintroduction has taken off, with it becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with all the releases and planned releases now happening across the country. Cornwall, Cheshire, Devon, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Kent, Essex and even Enfield in North London are among the places in England where beavers are already established or where there plans to do so. 

In many of these locations, the beavers are not being kept in a truly wild state, but housed in large enclosed areas, for the time being at least. 
However, the more projects set up, the greater the scope for beaver escapes or unauthorised beaver releases, which is how the UK’s two biggest populations of beavers at Tayside in Scotland and on the River Otter in Devon started out.

What’s also clear is the requirement for rewilders and conservationists to be acutely aware of farmers’ feelings and what’s being said within the farming community before steaming headlong into action, if they want beaver reintroduction to be successful in the long term. The same goes for conservationists and the forestry industry with regard to huge tree-planting targets now on the table.

Beaver town 

So you don’t know Forty Hill, Forty Hall Estate and its organic farm called Forty Hall Farm? Of course not, unless you live within or near Enfield on the northern edge of Greater London. But there will be few arborists and foresters in southern England at least who don’t know the nearby Capel Manor College campus, also in the London Borough of Enfield and a centre of excellence for education and training in arboriculture and forestry.

In fact, Capel Manor College runs Forty Hall Farm. 
The farm is now famous in the realms of wildlife after two beavers were brought to the site in mid-March, to become the first Eurasian beavers in London since the species was driven to extinction centuries ago. News reports say the last beavers would have been seen in London some 400 years ago, but I think it was much further back than that. 

As covered above, archives say the Eurasian beaver was extinct from the whole of Britain, including Scotland (almost certainly the animal’s last refuge), sometime during the 16th century. That apart, there is no way Forty Hill, with a contemporary London postcode, could have been regarded as part of London in the 15th and 16th centuries. At this time Forty Hill would have been a hamlet within the Enfield Chace Forest, a royal hunting ground in the county of Middlesex. 

However, there would have been bags of ideal habitat for beavers, because Forty Hill was at the bottom of the valley of the southward-flowing River Lea, with the River Thames as its destination.

The two beavers, a male and female, are now lodged in a custom-designed 15-acre enclosure in the grounds of Forty Hall Farm. Ian Barnes, Enfield Council’s deputy leader, said that reintroducing this native mammal to the London Borough of Enfield was part of the authority’s aim to challenge climate change and bolster ecosystems. 

He hopes that the beaver reintroduction project could eventually reduce the risk of flooding following extreme rainfall, and thereby protect hundreds, if not thousands, of local homes. Forty Hill – like some other areas of London north of the River Thames – has been experiencing a greater risk of flooding in recent years. 

For he’s a jolly good fellow 

Marcus Rashford (Image: MIKE EGERTON/PA WIRE/PA IMAGES)

One final news snippet: the first beaver to be born on Exmoor in four centuries recently celebrated his first birthday. The beaver was named Rashford after the Manchester United and England player Marcus Rashford, following a vote on social media. 
He was born to parents Yogi and Grylls on the Holnicote Estate in Somerset in May 2021.

The pair of beavers had been released into a 2.7-ha enclosure at Holnicote in January 2020. 

To mark the occasion the National Trust released images showing Rashford beavering away as beavers do, moving mud and building dams.