Appendix 9 – March 2023 beaver blethers report

March 2023: Beaver Bleth­ers Sum­mary Jonath­an Wil­let, Beaver Pro­ject Man­ager (16 July 2023)

Back­ground Four Beaver Bleth­ers were organ­ised in March 2023, two in Kin­craig, one in Kin­gussie and one in Aviemore. They took place on Wed­nes­days or Thursdays from 2pm to 7pm. They were advert­ised in the press and via the Park Author­ity web­site. Usu­ally 2 or 3 Park Author­ity staff were in attend­ance along with a NatureScot rep­res­ent­at­ive (Anne Elli­ott and on 3 occa­sions Kirsten Brew­ster) in addi­tion Elli­ot McCand­less from the Beaver Trust and Ian Wilson from NFUS atten­ded all the events and Alis­on McK­night atten­ded the first two events.

The Park Author­ity decided that a series of inform­al events focus­sing on rais­ing the aware­ness of beaver’s beha­viour and eco­logy that were aimed at landown­ers and loc­al res­id­ents would be the best way to engage with them before any form­al pro­cess took place. This format would allow those attend­ing to high­light any issues or con­cerns they had relat­ing to land management/​use and beavers. The con­ver­sa­tions at the events would allow the Park Author­ity staff attend­ing to hear these views, record them and either come up with a solu­tion or explan­a­tion on the day or go away and think about solu­tions to these issues. It also gave an oppor­tun­ity to view large, hab­it­at suit­ab­il­ity and dam­ming capa­city maps pro­duced for the beaver mod­el­ling work under­taken by Exeter University.

Often people had 20 to 30 minute con­ver­sa­tions with one or more of the staff at the event. This allowed inter­ac­tions to be dis­curs­ive (in a good way) around the sub­ject of beaver. The lack of time pres­sure allowed sub­jects raised to be addressed in detail.

If the attendees wished to find out more about the pro­ject or simply wished to leave writ­ten com­ments, then they were asked to fill in a form.

The Bleth­ers Beaver Bleth­er 1. Wed­nes­day 1^st March. Com­munity Hall, Kin­craig. Farm­ers and land man­agers were invited to this event. Attendees 11.

Writ­ten com­ments from the event;

• Con­cern around beaver being yet anoth­er ​‘thing’ to con­sider when there is already so much pres­sure on farmers.
• Want reas­sur­ance that CNPA will be their long term along with NatureScot.
• Gen­er­al feel­ing from Estate rep­res­ent­at­ives who atten­ded, was that beavers can have pos­it­ive impacts on the envir­on­ment and for tourism.
• Need sup­port from NS & CNPA to do mit­ig­a­tion farm­ers don’t have resources and strug­gling to recruit staff (cost of liv­ing in CNP/​Brexit etc) — is there an oppor­tun­ity for the CNPA to pilot a scheme based around eco­sys­tem ser­vices and ripari­an cor­ridor (Industry linked??) LENS Project/​Water stew­ard­ship etc.
• Will there be sup­port across the whole of the CNP or just release area?
• Will we be provid­ing assist­ance with aspen plant­ing and enclos­ures- indi­vidu­al fencing?
• What is the real­ity of impacts (many keen to have a vis­it to their land­hold­ing to have an assess­ment of this before beavers arrive).
• Farm­ing land (in the CNP) not clas­si­fied as PAL (Prime Agri­cul­tur­al Land) but the flood­plain is the best bit of land.
• Lag­gan flood­banks already in poor con­di­tion – will this be anoth­er impact on the flood­plain – worry over dams in ditches.
• Will there be an impact on claims through forestry grant schemes or car­bon cred­its for beaver felled trees (SG aware and look­ing into this).
• Wor­ries over flood bank burrowing.
• Indi­vidu­als keen to devel­op tour­ism oppor­tun­it­ies but very aware there may be impacts.
• Very import­ant that we (CNPA) are trans­par­ent in communication.

The feel­ing about beaver was split between undi­ver­si­fied farm­ers and land man­agers and those with tour­ism interests. i.e. those that can see a fin­an­cial cost with no bene­fit to their busi­ness and those who may see a cost but also see a fin­an­cial benefit.

Beaver Bleth­er 2. Thursday 9^th March at the Duke of Gor­don Hotel, Kin­gussie A mix of land man­agers and the gen­er­al pub­lic atten­ded this event. Attendees. 30

Writ­ten com­ments from the event;

• Very pos­it­ive, inter­ested in mit­ig­a­tion for beaver feed­ing on older nat­ive trees.
• Estate rep­res­ent­at­ive. Wor­ried about impacts on sal­mon fishing.
• Use­ful info but remain uncon­vinced am con­cerned that beaver may cause ser­i­ous issues fur­ther down the line (espe­cially on aspen).
• Very help­ful and informative.
• New­ton­more res­id­ent – positive.

Four more loc­al area res­id­ents vis­ited for gen­er­al interest and all were pos­it­ive. Five attendees were from out­with the area. Aspen and fish migra­tion were men­tioned as top­ics of con­cern and those who brought them up wanted to find out more about them.

Beaver Bleth­er 3. Thursday 22^nd March. Com­munity Hall, Kin­craig. Mainly the gen­er­al pub­lic in attend­ance, Attendees 23.

Writ­ten com­ments from the event;

• Pos­it­ive, fully sup­port­ive, ​“enlightened” after the discussion.
• Very excit­ing
• Very Pos­it­ive
• Sal­mon impacts. Spoken to Roger SFB.
• Great pro­ject….. lots of detailed inform­a­tion given.
• A won­der­ful vis­it, inform­at­ive and reassuring.
• They would like Beaver on their estate.
• Fas­cin­at­ing, positive.
• More to learn
• Keen for a visit.
• Yes, to bring­ing Beaver back!
• RZSS are supportive.

• Look­ing for­ward to hav­ing Beaver in the area.

• Get it done!

• Pos­it­ive, see oppor­tun­ity for an increase in eco­tour­ism. What about ripari­an trees impact also mater­i­al get­ting in the chan­nels and block­ing pas­sage of watersports.
• Would like to see Beaver and have a vis­it from us.
• All very interesting
• Inter­est­ing
• Fas­cin­at­ing information.

Beaver Bleth­er 4. Wed­nes­day 22^nd March. Youth Hostel, Aviemore. Mainly the gen­er­al pub­lic in attend­ance, a hand­ful of land managers/​farmers, Attendees. 12

Writ­ten com­ments from the event;

• Full sup­port!
• Look­ing for­ward to beavers in the NP
• Not sure. X (no?) beavers Grantown.
• Inter­est­ing
• Fol­low up with site vis­it – wor­ried about flood­ing of prime land for food pro­duc­tion, con­cern of pop­u­la­tion explo­sion, what is the max capa­city for beaver?
• Inter­est­ing. Love the idea.
• Let’s see! Lots of pluses.
• Let’s see! Lots of pluses.
• Cor­rect idea – fur­ther north (from the Cent­ral Belt)
• Estate road erosion concerns.

Dis­cus­sion Opin­ions voiced Sim­il­ar to the 1998 pub­lic con­sulta­tion, there was gen­er­ally a split in opin­ion between landowners/​farmers and the gen­er­al pub­lic. The former gen­er­ally con­cerned about beavers impact­ing on farm/​land use income and the lat­ter over­whelm­ingly pos­it­ive. How­ever, what has changed since 1998 is that some landown­ers, par­tic­u­larly diver­si­fied estates or farms, see the eco­nom­ic poten­tial of beavers in rela­tion to tourism.

Fur­ther inform­a­tion Many attendees wanted more inform­a­tion about beavers in gen­er­al and on some spe­cif­ic issues. The Park Author­ity will look to link Q&A mater­i­al with sci­entif­ic papers to back up our answers and allow those inter­ested to delve deep­er into the subject.

Maps, posters and inter­pret­ive mater­i­als The maps show­ing the mod­el­ling of dam capa­city and hab­it­at suit­ab­il­ity were very use­ful, of great interest and helped to facil­it­ate detailed, site-spe­cif­ic dis­cus­sions and fur­ther ques­tions about beavers. The inform­a­tion avail­able for folk to browse was well- received. Beaver props, such as a pelt and a skull, were great for a real ​“hands-on” experience.

Tea and bis­cuits This went down very well and gave an inform­al and friendly feel to the event and encour­aged people to stay a wee while longer.

Con­clu­sions The Beaver Bleth­ers worked well; allow­ing, as hoped for, a neut­ral space to bring up con­cerns or issues that will inform the form­al engage­ment pro­cess. Aware­ness about beaver’s beha­viour and their eco­logy was also raised.

The con­ver­sa­tions were respect­ful and the time avail­able to have an in-depth con­ver­sa­tion was invalu­able, as points could be made by both speak­ers and these fully respon­ded to.

The impacts that beavers could have, which were brought up by those attend­ing the Beaver Bleth­ers, were all felt to be either mit­igat­able or avoid­able. Details of how these tech­niques will be enacted and delivered will be con­tained in the Form­al Engage­ment Document.