AN eco-coalition is urging MSPs to vote against beaver culls today as it calls for a new relocation drive.
The species had been extinct in the UK for hundreds of years until a trial reintroduction in Argyll in 2009.
Further unregulated releases have lead to the spread of the mammal in the Tayside region, where 87 licences were granted for the shooting of beavers by Scottish Natural Heritage in 2019.
Those were agreed in the month after the Scottish Government voted to give the animal protected status.
That news prompted concern over the long-term future of the species.
Now the Scottish Rewilding Alliance is calling on MSPs in Holyrood to vote to ban the licensed killing of beavers “at least until their conservation status is clearly secured”.
It wants the Scottish Government to agree a new regime which would allow beavers to be relocated from areas where they affect agriculture to others where landowners would welcome them.
The call comes as MSPs are set to vote on an amendment to animal laws proposed by Green MSP Mark Ruskell.
Steve Micklewright, convener of the Scottish Rewilding Alliance and chief executive of conservation charity Trees for Life, said: “Just a year ago the Scottish Government told us that beavers would be protected in Scotland, and that beavers were hugely important to the country’s biodiversity. But with a fifth of our population of these special animals killed in just a few months last year, the Scottish Natural Heritage-operated licensing regime seems little better than a free-for-all.
“Beavers’ activities around our waterways help protect our towns and cities against flooding, and they restore wetlands and create habitats for a wealth of wildlife. Occasionally, as in Tayside, they can have local impacts on agriculture too, and ministers are putting landowners around the Tay in an impossible position by blocking beavers’ relocation to other more suitable areas of Scotland.
“We urge Parliament to support a ban on killing beavers, given their fragile conservation status here, and we’re calling on the Scottish Government to let those beavers in more controversial locations be relocated to areas where landowners would welcome their return for the first time since the sixteenth century.”
Proposing the change, Mid-Scotland and Fife MSP Ruskell said: “The fact that a fifth of Scotland’s beaver population has been killed under licence since the Scottish Government supposedly protected them is nothing less than a scandal.”
He went on: “Beavers are supposed to be a protected species, and I intend to make that ambition a reality.”
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel