Blind Date
- Alistair
- Apr 29
- 3 min read
After much waiting on health screening results, B day finally arrived. And along with it a hopefully budding romance.
The main fence of the beaver enclosure had been sorted for months. A few extra bits needed to be done, including the all-important grills to prevent beavers escaping via water inlets or outlets. Richard, our fencer, got these made and installed.
After a bit more wire mesh was installed in vulnerable areas by Jess and John (our horticultural team), Alicia, from WWT had given the all clear in her report to NRW (the Welsh government agency Natural Resource Wales). However, the health screening process (blood and faecal tests) dragged on and on and on.
Finally, the results came late Friday afternoon and we were good to go. The beavers in question are Steve and Doris. Steve is now 3 years old, was born in the wild in Scotland, captured (presumably as his family were not appreciated by the landowner) and has lived for a while in an English enclosure. Doris was born in captivity and is now 2 years old. They were sitting at Derek Gow's facility in Devon, and Jenny, head keeper, and her partner drove up with them on Saturday. At 5pm a hastily convened welcoming committee was assembled to greet them, friends and neighbours, all of whom have helped with the project. Two crates came out of the back of the van.
All I can say is that Steve and Doris are not lightweights. Tracking through the enclosure with them was a task and a half. Each crate was 40kg and around half of that was beaver.
Now Steve and Doris had not actually met. They were in adjoining rooms at the Derek Gow guest house and had scent swopped and apparently not been mutually repelled (is that a swipe left or swipe right on a smell-based Tinder? Not sure). However, Jenny thought it prudent to release them a little bit apart and the let them meet after they had time to at least check out their new stamping (perhaps splashing?) ground
Steve went first, soon disappearing up a small waterway under the brambles. Doris put on more of a show for the crowd, messing around, diving, coming onto the bank and generally ignoring our presence. They are amazing. Much bigger than you might imagine ... think chocolate brown labrador with short legs, webbed feed and a flat tail. But very graceful in the water, with a lumbering gait on land. A beautiful lumbering gait!
So, so pleased ... felt great after so much hard work by Roisin at The Beaver Trust, Derek, Rob, Rob (yes, two), Alicia, Jess, John, Richard and Ron (digger driver extraordinaire). And lots of encouragement from Robert, Julia, Judi and Sasha
Anyway, hope Steve and Doris get on. As Cilla used to say on Blind Date, let's hope that they have a "lorra, lorra laughs". Who knows, we may need to buy that new hat ...
Apart from looking cute, the main purpose of bringing them to Cefn Garthenor is to see what they do to the landscape and the impact that they have on biodiversity. With their damming, coppicing and habitat management they should create an amazing space for many other creatures and plants. They will also help manage water flows down into the Aeron valley. And as my neighbours and the country in general sees the good that they can do, I hope that we move to wild introductions, which would be good for us humans (particularly in terms of flood prevention) and for nature (helping restore or at least slow the rate of decline in our biodiversity). We will keep you posted.
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