Beavers.

I wanted to have a look and see what Conservation projects I could find a bit further a field, the first project I wanted to look at was the introduction of Beavers back into Scotland in Knapdale (www.scottishbeavers.org.uk). This in its way is a bit of a controversial subject because on the one hand its great to have a species that was hunted to extinction back in the country and surprisingly their dam building actually helps the forest because they natural clear trees producing areas where newer growth can occur dew to the increase in light at the forest floor. Plus there dams produce new ponds and wetland areas again increasing the diversity of the area. On the other hand there are a lot of people who are against this kind of reintroduction because they see the negative effect it will have, for example local people are concerned about  the spread of the species outside the controlled environment there being studied in at the moment. As far as I know there were two families in the original introduction and I know that at least one pair have bred, to me this doesn't say population explosion but its only early days in the project so you never no I suppose what could happen in the future. I think local peoples main concern is around the way beavers alter rivers by building dams, this can produce flooding in areas that haven't had this kind of issue before. Another concern is that they don't want them coming onto there land and cutting trees and clearing areas they shouldn't, I remember on one program I saw about this project (think it might have been Springwatch on the BBC this year) one person said if he saw any of them on his land he'd shoot and kill them. If this is the view of some people in the area surrounding the project I don't think it bodes well for the future, how can they be fully reintroduced if straight away there going to be persecuted and hunted just because of the slight effect there going to have on the landscape. I think the group running the program are going to have a hard sell over the next few years but maybe if they focus on the positives of this reintroduction for example increased tourism in  the area then just maybe they might have a chances, here's hoping anyway.

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