Beaver Update

Decem­ber 2025

Jonath­an Wil­let (22 Decem­ber 2025)

Beaver Pop­u­la­tion Summary

Year 1 releases – 18. Year 2 releases – 15. Year 3 releases – 5. 2024 wild-born kits – 2 (from 2 fam­il­ies). 2025 wild-born kits – 18 (from 8 fam­il­ies). Total of 58 (includ­ing 1 beaver out­with the Nation­al Park boundary).

Activ­ity

• Rothiemurchus (Lochan Mor/​Lily Loch): Beavers still act­ive on the site. Lots of recent felling of birch trees around the loch build­ing a large food cache in front of the lodge. The lodge is now 6m long, 5, wide and 2m high at the water level.
• Wild­land 1: The Aspen felling in this area has ceased this month, the felled trees con­tin­ue to be bark stripped.
• Wild­land 1: The dam on the loch’s out­flow burn has remained intact and has not been added to since it was first con­struc­ted in Septem­ber 2025. Nor­mal winter water levels have been main­tained, with a fluc­tu­ation of around 30cm depend­ing on rain­fall. The loch con­tin­ues to drain.
• Wild­land 2: Beavers are still act­ive on this site.
• Insh Marshes. Beavers still act­ive on the site and have explored nearly all of the reserve.
• Wild­land 3: A fam­ily of 5 beavers have been released on this site and are set­tling in.
• Wild­land 4: Beavers are still act­ive on this site.
• Inshriach: Beavers are still act­ive on the site.
• Loch Mor­lich: Beavers are still act­ive on the site, with extens­ive felling of wil­lows on the yel­low trail, beside Abhainn Ruighe Eun­achan (inflow to Loch Morlich).
• Aviemore area: Fresh feed­ing signs found on a wil­low tree at the con­flu­ence of the Milton Burn (Rothiemurchus) and the Spey. This is close to where a beaver was seen dur­ing the canoe sur­vey in August.
• Kin­gussie Graz­ings: A beaver is still act­ive on this site.

Sites out­with Kin­gussie to Aviemore

• Crom­dale beaver. New bur­row and food cache on the site.
• Gar­mouth beaver. No new reports.
• Lag­gan Bridge. Fresh feed­ing signs recor­ded on each weekly vis­it this month. No per­mis­sion for cam­era trap­ping has been received from the landown­ers yet. How­ever, the amount of feed­ing seen on site points to a single beaver being present.
• Boat of Garten. A beaver bur­row has been found on the Spey. The landown­er has been informed and weekly mon­it­or­ing has com­menced. A cam­era trap has been set up.

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 recent activ­ity. Livestream cam­era installed at the land man­agers request after a site vis­it on the 16 December.
• Wild­land 1. All the trees on this site have been wrapped.
• Rothiemurchus. The two Aspen trees have been wrapped, all tree pro­tec­tion installed in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ was checked and is intact.
• 3 Decem­ber. Mon­it­or­ing and Mit­ig­a­tion Group Meeting.
• 4 and 5 Decem­ber. Pilot Licen­cing Dam Remov­al Train­ing delivered by NatureScot to Park Author­ity staff.

Rais­ing Aware­ness and Understanding

10 Decem­ber. Attend­ing a Q&A ses­sion at the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment after a show­ing of Bal­an­cing the Scales Film. Hos­ted by Arianne Bur­gess MSP, the Beaver spe­cies cham­pi­on. 20 attendees.

N.B. If beavers are found in an area where the landown­er was not pre­vi­ously aware of their pres­ence, the Park Author­ity will con­tact that landown­er. The Park Author­ity does not routinely con­tact landown­ers with gen­er­al updates; this monthly update does that. There are What­s­App Groups for landown­ers around releases sites and also in any high impact areas, which have beavers present e.g. Laggan.