Report on the talk "Restoring Beavers to Regenerate our Landscape"

Beavers at Meonside Farm: Olly Atkinson

On a steaming hot evening, the hall was full for Olly Atkinson’s talk about the beaver project at Meonside farm. The project is part of a wider scheme to promote the benefits of mixed farming in improving the health of the land. The demands of World War II destroyed much of our natural environment, since everything was ploughed and planted for food whether or not the land was suitable. The Atkinsons are proving that a mixed farming approach can repair our ecosystem and ultimately make it more productive. The beavers are a key part of this.

The Eurasian beaver is the second largest rodent in the world. It can weigh as much as 30 kilos and lives up to 20 years, barring illness or injury. Its teeth are orange due to a high iron content, and it needs to keep grinding them down, because they never stop growing. It can hold its breath underwater for over five minutes. Its tail acts as a fat store and is covered in hard scaly skin rather like a snake. They became extinct in England in Tudor times when they were hunted for their meat, skins and musky scent glands. A reintroduction scheme which started in Scotland now has animals thriving in over forty locations nationwide.

Despite its size and strength, the beaver is shy and will run away than seek a confrontation with humans or any other animals. They are mainly nocturnal, but on late summer evenings it is possible to see them swimming or sunning themselves on the roof of their lodge.

Their major food sources are hazel, willow, poplar and crab apple, all of which grow quickly, and thrive on being coppiced by hungry animals. Concerns that they might eat their way through creosoted telegraph poles or pine forests were soon allayed. Beavers hate the taste of coal tar and pine!

The great value of beavers is their ability to engineer the landscape. Their system of dams slows down river flow and creates wetlands in which many species can flourish. When the rivers spread and form sluggish pools, the water temperature and PH balance changes. This creates the right conditions for aquatic plants to thrive and provide a nursery habitat for the diverse creatures that spawn in and around water. Larger animals have easier access to water. Everything improves. When the river flows slowly, floods are held back and have less destructive impact.

Olly showed us pictures of his beavers working on their dams. They don’t just use logs for this but are also skilled at manipulating stones. The impressive flat rock roof on their lodge looked more like a man-made bridge than anything an animal had created.

This all started in the summer of 2023, when they visited the project at Knepp Estate and became interested in the idea of introducing beavers to their farm. It was a difficult process of consultations, government licenses, and finding funds to build a beaver-proof enclosure. Three years on, two healthy kits have been born, and the future of beavers as an integral part of British wildlife seems more secure than ever.

For details of how to visit the project, visit their website: https://www.meonsidefarm.com

The Flower of the Month competition was won by Jane-Ann Coulter with a pink and white rose called ‘Nostalgia’