Appendix 2.2 – Additional release site information

Appendix 2.2

5.2 Fur­ther release site details

Release site 2 | — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — | | Pop­u­la­tion name | RSPB Scot­land | | Pop­u­la­tion loc­a­tion (region, coun­try) | Insh Marshes | | Grid ref­er­ence / coordin­ates (includ­ing details of coordin­ate sys­tem, datum etc) | | | Inside or out­side of nat­ive range of trans­lo­cated spe­cies or type? | Out­side | | Inside or out­side of nat­ur­al range of trans­lo­cated spe­cies or type? | Inside | | Date(s) of release | Spring 2024 Feb­ru­ary — April 2024 | | Landown­er name | RSPB | | Landown­er con­tact details | | | Land man­ager name (if dif­fer­ent to above) | | | Land man­ager con­tact details | | | Landown­er / man­ager per­mis­sion gran­ted? (includ­ing date per­mis­sion gran­ted) | Yes ‑13 Octo­ber 2023 | | Con­ser­va­tion pro­tec­tion afforded to the site (if yes, what type) | SSSI, SPA, SAC, Ram­sar and NNR | | Hab­it­at type (e.g. Phase 1 hab­it­at cat­egory, NVC or HIS, or gen­er­al descrip­tion) | The reserve con­tains a com­plex of mix hab­it­ats includ­ing flood­plain wet­lands (fen, swamp, wet grass­land and wet wood­land), fresh­wa­ter bod­ies (meso­troph­ic loch and lochans), ripari­an hab­it­ats, wood­land (includ­ing aspen wood­land, mixed broadleaf wood­land and con­i­fer­ous plant­a­tion), spe­cies rich grass­land and dry heath. | | Prox­im­ity and con­text to oth­er pop­u­la­tions of the focal spe­cies | Nearest known pop­u­la­tions are present in Pit­lo­chry, Tay­side and on the River Beauly, both > 50 miles away with no dir­ect and unim­peded con­nec­tion via fresh­wa­ter courses. | | Which donor pop­u­la­tions are being released at this site? | Wild Tay­side catchment |

|Dis­tance of donor population(s) to release site| ~55 miles| |Is the donor pop­u­la­tion in the same coun­try as release site?|Yes| |Num­ber of indi­vidu­als to be released|Three pairs (with any depend­ent off­spring)| |Nature of released mater­i­al (e.g. eggs, seeds, lar­vae, adults, sex ratios etc)|Adults 1:1| |If mul­tiple donor sources are used, what are the pro­por­tions of the mix?|All with­in the Tay­side catchment|

If an exist­ing pop­u­la­tion is present at the release site (rein­force­ment) |Pop­u­la­tion size of res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion| | |How pop­u­la­tion size was estim­ated (sur­vey meth­od, date(s) of estim­ate)| | |Reas­on for rein­force­ment| | |Intra-spe­cif­ic clas­si­fic­a­tion of res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion (e.g. sub-spe­cies / vari­ety / eco­type / race)| | |Intra-spe­cif­ic clas­si­fic­a­tion of donor population(s) (e.g. sub-spe­cies / vari­ety / eco­type / race)| |

Release strategy sum­mary (includ­ing details of what is released where) Site vis­its to Insh Marsh have been under­taken with RSPB site man­agers, eco­lo­gists and Dr Roisin Camp­bell-Palmer. Three release areas have been iden­ti­fied with­in the reserve focus­ing on areas of more stable, open water with highly suit­able year round for­age. The feas­ib­il­ity assess­ment is sum­mar­ised in Appendix 2, giv­en the con­nectiv­ity of the site and high suit­able hab­it­at there is a high expect­a­tion that released anim­als will also reside on the main River Spey in this area.

All beavers will be live trapped and trans­por­ted by the Beaver Trust accord­ing to estab­lished best prac­tice pro­to­cols via exper­i­ence gained in oth­er trans­lo­ca­tions over sev­er­al years. Fol­low­ing neg­at­ive health screen­ing res­ults and being signed fit for release by a spe­cial­ist wild­life vet, each indi­vidu­al will be micro­chipped enabling per­man­ent iden­ti­fic­a­tion. Beavers will be crated in spe­cific­ally designed travel crates at Five Sis­ters Zoo on morn­ing of release. Each crate will be pro­vi­sioned with a deep straw lay­er and apples for food and mois­ture. Crates will be covered with light sheets to keep anim­als calm and darkened, but ensur­ing good vent­il­a­tion. On site beavers will be trans­ferred to the release points via boat from Loch Insh, or oth­er options such as 4×4 or quad bikes may be used, this will be final­ised in dis­cus­sion with the Beaver Trust. A visu­al exam­in­a­tion will be under­taken before anim­als are released. Each travel crate will be posi­tioned in close prox­im­ity to the water line so that beavers can imme­di­ately seek the water. Beavers would be released sim­ul­tan­eously as a pair / fam­ily unit. Only a small num­ber of people will be present for the release (10 max) and will be posi­tioned at a dis­tance behind the travel crates. Noise and dis­turb­ance will be kept to a min­im­um. The release date and plans will be kept

strictly con­fid­en­tial to avoid mem­bers of the pub­lic vis­it­ing the site dur­ing the release period.

Release site pre­par­a­tion ahead of the release may include the cre­ation of freshly cut brash placed along the shoreline to cre­ate imme­di­ate shel­ter, fam­ily reunit­ing and for­aging points to encour­age site fidel­ity. Sev­er­al cam­era traps will also be placed in likely used areas ahead of the release to reduce dis­turb­ance — it is pro­posed these are baited with food items and used bed­ding from the beavers again as a tem­por­ary mon­it­or­ing and set­tling in tool.

Addi­tion­al inform­a­tion about the release site rel­ev­ant to the trans­lo­ca­tion |Addi­tion­al inform­a­tion is provided in the RSPB release strategy doc­u­ment| |Appendix 2.1|

Release site 3 |Pop­u­la­tion name|Wildland Cairngorms| |Pop­u­la­tion loc­a­tion (region, country)|Upper Spey, near Aviemore| |Grid reference/​coordin­ates (includ­ing details of coordin­ate sys­tem, datum etc)| | |Inside or out­side of nat­ive range of trans­lo­cated species?|Outside| |Inside or out­side of nat­ur­al range for trans­lo­cated species|Inside| |Dates(s) of release|Autumn 2023 – spring 2024| |Landown­er name|Wildland Lim­ited| |Land own­er con­tact details| | |Land man­ager name (if dif­fer­ent to the above)| | |Land man­ager con­tact details| | |Land owner/​man­ager per­mis­sion granted?|Yes, 14^th July 2023| |Con­ser­va­tion pro­tec­tion afforded to site (if yes, what type?)| |

|Hab­it­at type (e.g. Phase 1 hab­it­at cat­egory, NVC or gen­er­al description)|Complex wet­land with extens­ive areas of open water, reed beds, wet wood­land| |Prox­im­ity and con­text of oth­er pop­u­la­tions of the focal species|Nearest known pop­u­la­tions are present in Pit­lo­chry, Tay­side and on the River Beauly, both > 50 miles away with no dir­ect and unim­peded con­nec­tion via fresh­wa­ter courses. Should beavers be released across the mul­tiple release sites in this applic­a­tion, then release sites are all con­nec­ted via the River Spey and with­in a range of <15km of each oth­er| |Which donor pop­u­la­tions are being released at the site?|Wild Tay­side catch­ment| |Dis­tance of donor population(s) to release site|~55 miles| |Is the donor pop­u­la­tion in the same coun­try as release sites?|Yes| |Num­ber of indi­vidu­als to be released|1 pair with any depend­ent off­spring| |Nature of released mater­i­al (eggs, seeds, lar­vae, adults, sex ratios etc)|Adults 1:1 (with any depend­ent off­spring)| |If mul­tiple donor sources are used, what are the pro­por­tions of the mix?|All anim­als will be sourced from con­flict sites with­in the Tay and Forth catchment|

If an exist­ing pop­u­la­tion is present at the release (rein­force­ment) |Pop­u­la­tion size of res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion| | |How pop­u­la­tion size was estim­ated (Sur­vey meth­od, date(s) of estim­ate)| | |Reas­on for rein­force­ment| | |Intra-spe­cif­ic clas­si­fic­a­tion of res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion (e.g. sub-spe­cies/vari­ety/e­co­type/race)| | |Intra-spe­cif­ic clas­si­fic­a­tion of donor population(s) (e.g. sub-spe­cies/vari­ety/e­co­type/race)| |

Release site strategy sum­mary (includ­ing details of what is released where) A site vis­it to area have been under­taken with CNP staff and Dr Roisin Camp­bell-Palmer (fur­ther details in the feas­ib­il­ity report in Appendix 2). |open water|surrounded by wet com­plex woodland.|

All beavers will be live trapped and trans­por­ted by the Beaver Trust accord­ing to estab­lished best prac­tice pro­to­cols via exper­i­ence gained in oth­er trans­lo­ca­tions over sev­er­al years. Fol­low­ing neg­at­ive health screen­ing res­ults and being signed fit for release by a spe­cial­ist wild­life vet. Each indi­vidu­al will be micro­chipped enabling per­man­ent iden­ti­fic­a­tion. Beavers will be crated in spe­cific­ally designed travel crates at Five Sis­ter Zoo on morn­ing of release. Each crate will be pro­vi­sioned with a deep straw lay­er and apples for food and mois­ture. Crates will be covered with light sheets to keep anim­als calm and darkened, but ensur­ing good vent­il­a­tion. On site beavers can be transported

close to the loch shoreline itself via vehicles along an exist­ing access track, with the last dis­tance covered by car­ry­ing crates to the shoreline. A visu­al exam­in­a­tion will be under­taken before anim­als are released. Each travel crate will be posi­tioned in close prox­im­ity to the water line so that beavers can imme­di­ately seek the water. Beavers would be released sim­ul­tan­eously as a pair/​fam­ily unit. Only a small num­ber of people will be present for the release, with fur­ther view­ing from a dis­tance pos­sible from the access track. Noise and dis­turb­ance will be kept to a minimum.

It is pro­posed that the beavers are released away from eas­ily access­ible areas to the pub­lic and access track lin­ing the loch. This enables the beavers to move away from view and have imme­di­ate access to water.

Release site pre­par­a­tion ahead of the release may include the cre­ation of freshly cut brash placed along the shoreline to cre­ate imme­di­ate shel­ter, fam­ily reunit­ing and for­aging points to encour­age site fidel­ity. Sev­er­al cam­era traps will also be placed in likely used areas ahead of the release to reduce dis­turb­ance — it is pro­posed these are baited with food items and used bed­ding from the beavers again as a tem­por­ary mon­it­or­ing and set­tling in tool.

Addi­tion­al inform­a­tion about the release site rel­ev­ant to the trans­lo­ca­tion Wild­land Ltd do not want the spe­cif­ic loc­a­tion of the trans­lo­ca­tion made pub­lic at this time. The site must be referred to as Wild­land Cairngorms not

Note: An addi­tion­al site 4 was included in the licence applic­a­tion as a poten­tial site for con­sid­er­a­tion in future releases as per the licence, but will not be part of the first suite of releases.

Release site 4 |Pop­u­la­tion name|| |Pop­u­la­tion loc­a­tion (region, country)|Upper Spey, Aviemore| |Grid reference/​coordin­ates (includ­ing details of coordin­ate sys­tem, datum etc)| | |Inside or out­side of nat­ive range of trans­lo­cated species?|Outside| |Inside or out­side of nat­ur­al range for trans­lo­cated species|Inside| |Dates(s) of release|Autumn 2023 — Autumn 2024| |Landown­er name|| |Land own­er con­tact details||

|Land man­ager name (if dif­fer­ent to the above)|| |Land man­ager con­tact details|| |Land owner/​man­ager per­mis­sion gran­ted? (included per­mis­sion granted)|Yes, 8^th August 2023| |Con­ser­va­tion pro­tec­tion afforded to site (if yes, what type?)||

|Hab­it­at type (e.g. Phase 1 hab­it­at cat­egory, NVC or gen­er­al description)|The loch and imme­di­ate area rep­res­ent a diverse wet­land and wet wood­land com­plex includ­ing a large open fresh­wa­ter body with developed reed beds, aquat­ic and semi-aquat­ic plant assemblages, fringes of flood­plain wet­land, ripari­an wood­land and broadleaf wood­land, con­i­fer­ous plant­a­tion (includ­ing| |Prox­im­ity and con­text of oth­er pop­u­la­tions of the focal species|Nearest known pop­u­la­tions are present in Pit­lo­chry, Tay­side and on the River Beauly, both > 50 miles away with no dir­ect and unim­peded con­nec­tion via fresh­wa­ter courses. Should beavers be released across the mul­tiple release sites in this applic­a­tion, then release sites are all con­nec­ted via the River Spey and with­in a range of <15km of each oth­er| |Which donor pop­u­la­tions are being released at the site?|Wild Tay­side catch­ment| |Dis­tance of donor population(s) to release site|~55 miles| |Is the donor pop­u­la­tion in the same coun­try as release sites?|Yes| |Num­ber of indi­vidu­als to be released|1 pair with any depend­ent off­spring| |Nature of released mater­i­al (eggs, seeds, lar­vae, adults, sex ratios etc)|Adults 1:1 (with any depend­ent off­spring)| |If mul­tiple donor sources are used, what are the pro­por­tions of the mix?|All anim­als will be sourced from con­flict sites with­in the Tay and Forth catchment|

If an exist­ing pop­u­la­tion is present at the release (rein­force­ment) |Pop­u­la­tion size of res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion|| |How pop­u­la­tion size was estim­ated (Sur­vey meth­od, date(s) of estim­ate)|| |Reas­on for rein­force­ment|| |Intra-spe­cif­ic clas­si­fic­a­tion of res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion (e.g. sub-spe­cies/vari­ety/e­co­type/race)|| |Intra-spe­cif­ic clas­si­fic­a­tion of donor population(s) (e.g. sub-spe­cies/vari­ety/e­co­type/race)||

Release site strategy sum­mary (includ­ing details of what is released where) A site vis­it to area has been under­taken with own­er, Park Author­ity staff, and Dr Roisin Camp­bell-Palmer (fur­ther details in the feas­ib­il­ity report attached Appendix 2). |open water|surrounded by wet, com­plex woodland.|

All beavers will be live trapped and trans­por­ted by the Beaver Trust accord­ing to estab­lished best prac­tice pro­to­cols via exper­i­ence gained in oth­er trans­lo­ca­tions over sev­er­al years. Fol­low­ing neg­at­ive health screen­ing res­ults and being signed fit for release by a spe­cial­ist wild­life vet. Each indi­vidu­al will be micro­chipped enabling per­man­ent iden­ti­fic­a­tion. Beavers will be crated in spe­cific­ally designed travel crates at Five Sis­ter Zoo on morn­ing of release. Each crate will be pro­vi­sioned with a deep straw lay­er and apples for food and mois­ture. Crates will be covered with light sheets to keep anim­als calm and darkened but ensur­ing good vent­il­a­tion. On site beavers can be trans­por­ted close to the loch shoreline itself via vehicles along an exist­ing private track, with the last dis­tance covered by car­ry­ing crates to the shoreline. A visu­al exam­in­a­tion will be under­taken before anim­als are released. Each travel crate will be posi­tioned in close prox­im­ity to the water line so that beavers can imme­di­ately seek the water. Beavers would be released sim­ul­tan­eously as a pair/​fam­ily unit. Only a small num­ber of people will be present for the release (10 max) and will be posi­tioned at a dis­tance behind the travel crates. Noise and dis­turb­ance will be kept to a minimum.

It is pro­posed that the beavers are released away from eas­ily from eas­ily access­ible areas to the pub­lic and access track lin­ing the loch. This enables the beavers to move away from view and have imme­di­ate access to water.

Release site pre­par­a­tion ahead of the release may include the cre­ation of freshly cut brash placed along the shoreline to cre­ate imme­di­ate shel­ter, fam­ily reunit­ing and for­aging points to encour­age site fidel­ity. Sev­er­al cam­era traps will also be placed in likely used areas ahead of the release to reduce dis­turb­ance — it is pro­posed these are baited with food items and used bed­ding from the beavers again as a tem­por­ary mon­it­or­ing and set­tling in tool.

Addi­tion­al inform­a­tion about the release site rel­ev­ant to the trans­lo­ca­tion Fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with landown­er a mon­it­or­ing and mit­ig­a­tion plan has been developed to par­tic­u­larly ensure CNPA via the Beaver Pro­ject Man­ager that the is not blocked through beaver activ­it­ies, that , along with any future tree plant­ing designed in mind with beaver pres­ence. The pro­ject has com­mit­ted to weekly mon­it­or­ing over the course of the first year of release, to then be reviewed.

The landown­er wishes to keep the trans­lo­ca­tion con­fid­en­tial and does not want the site or their details made pub­lic at this time.