Monthly Beaver Update - April 2025

Beaver Update April 2025 Jonath­an Wil­let (01 May 2025)

Activ­ity

• Rothiemurchus (Lily Loch): Two beavers seen on the 14 and three beavers seen on the 24 April dur­ing even­ing watches
• Wild­land 1: The beavers have moved on to a tall, 50cm dia­met­er Aspen tree, about 6cm of wood on one side has been removed in two weeks
• Wild­land 2: No change on the site, the cut wil­low is start­ing to sprout new shoots
• Insh Marshes. No change on site, one dam on site rais­ing water levels by around 60cm
• Wild­land 3: No change on site, still no sign of a lodge or burrow
• Wild­land 4: Still plenty of activ­ity on the site
• Inshriach. No change on the site, the beavers are felling and feed­ing on White Poplar.
• Loch Mor­lich: No change on site. A beaver was spot­ted in the morn­ing of the 30 April, on Loch Mor­lich, close to the release site
• Aviemore: No recent activ­ity recorded
• Kin­gussie Graz­ings: No fresh beaver signs, one or two videos of a beaver. Await­ing approv­al for a licence to fill in the col­lapsed, unoc­cu­pied bur­row there

Sites out­with Kin­gussie to Aviemore

• Crom­dale beaver kit. Still present on site
• Fochabers beaver. The site was vis­ited on the 17 April, the beaver was still act­ive on the site
• Lag­gan Bridge. Feed­ings signs close to Lag­gan Bridge and the Lag­gan Kirk were repor­ted to us on the 28 April, the site was vis­ited on the 30 April. Feed­ing signs more than 3 months old were found on wil­low and Black Pop­lar, a few feed­ing signs about a month old were also found. The older signs indic­ate the beaver was there a week or two and the more recent signs a day or two. There was no evid­ence to indic­ate a beaver is res­id­ent. It Is likely that this beaver is the one that has been in the Kin­gussie area and trav­elled up to the Spey Dam a year ago. A canoe sur­vey of the Spey from the Spey Dam down­stream will begin at the end of May

Mon­it­or­ing and Mit­ig­a­tion Plan Actions

• Monthly patrols of release sites undertaken

• Weekly patrols of high impact areas have been undertaken

• Beaver dam remov­al site. No activ­ity recorded

• 4 rolls of weldmesh delivered to Kin­gussie Graz­ings to pro­tect a new orch­ard that Is being planted there

Rais­ing Aware­ness and Understanding

• 2 April. Site vis­it to the Lily Loch and train­ing for the new Rothiemurchus Rangers. 6
• 9 April. Delivered SCRA Grampi­an Beaver Train­ing Event. 12
• 10 April. Site vis­it by Shef­field Uni­ver­sity to Inshriach. 50
• 16 April. Mam­mal Soci­ety Spe­cies Rein­tro­duc­tion Q&A — online event. 60
• 23 April. Site vis­it to beaver release sites with Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive staff. 4
• 24 April. FLS North Region Sil­vi­cul­tur­al Group site vis­it to Loch Mor­lich. 14

Oth­er News

• Pete Short, the new Beaver Pro­ject Officer, star­ted at the begin­ning of this month. He will be help­ing with site vis­its, drone sur­vey­ing and most things to do with the Beaver Project