The Knepp estate in Sussex has been done for its rewilding work for many years. In January this year British government gave the estate a licence to release beavers into an enclosed area.
The idea is to release two pairs of beavers on to the estate. There are some rivers that area is a lot of scope for allowing the river to return to a more wild state and increasing their pockets of a standing water.
Apart from giving significant protection to areas downstream from flooding it will also give a slow steady flow of water through periods of drought. Obviously most of these are very good news.
The beavers here will be kept under similar circumstances to the believers that were released in the Forest of Dean in 2018.
Between the now sanctioned accidental release, and the planned trials, this will be the 11th county in the UK to get beavers. The health impacts on the ecosystem is quite astounding, with amphibians and reptiles recovering dramatically around these buckets of water alongside many species of birds and small mammals doing very very well.
This is another exciting step towards bringing beavers back naturally in the UK. There are still a number of steps to be taken, and there’s a significant number of people to convince of their incorrect fears particularly groups such as fishermen. However the data from all these releases can only help in this regard as it will be shown that far from beavers being a problem for fish they are actually a big asset.
