Monthly Beaver Update - February 2025

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Beaver Update Feb­ru­ary 2025

Activ­ity • Rothiemurchus. Not much activ­ity and lodge much the same, sap now rising in some gnawed birches, tree regrowth noted. • Wild­land 1. Lodge being increased in size. Felling of five, small Aspen after the snow­melt, con­tin­ued strip­ping of large aspen felled. Site vis­it dur­ing Aspen Bristle-moss train­ing course to this loc­a­tion. • Wild­land 2. Tree felling and canal build­ing seen • Insh Marshes. Of the two lodges, the one with the cam­era has cap­tured lodge aug­ment­a­tion- water levels have been high in last week of Feb. • Wild­land 3. No change • Wild­land 4. Lots of feed­ing on trees and aquat­ic veget­a­tion, lodge found with food cache. Small pos­sible new lodge found. • Inshriach. The beavers have been explor­ing on the Spey and feed­ing on wil­lows there, bank lodge loc­ated. • Inshriach beaver kit. Found in a pond, near Crom­dale. It has been there since early Novem­ber and is still res­id­ent. The site man­ager wishes the loc­a­tion to remain con­fid­en­tial. • Loch Mor­lich. Lots of feed­ing on wil­low on the Abhainn Ruigh-Eun­achan. No lodge or bur­row found • Aviemore. Very few fresh feed­ing signs found • Kin­gussie Graz­ings vis­it­ing weekly, quite a lot of feed­ing signs and foot­prints found. Adult and sub-adult cap­tured on cam­era. • Site upstream of Fochabers on a back­wa­ter of the Spey- 3/3/25 aler­ted to signs of beaver, met site man­ager, own­er and ghil­lies on site, set up cam­era to mon­it­or num­ber of indi­vidu­als present.

Mon­it­or­ing and Mit­ig­a­tion Plan Actions • Weekly patrols of release sites and poten­tial high impact areas under­taken • At beaver dam remov­al site. Only one beaver seen on site dur­ing Feb­ru­ary and have not rebuilt the dam.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Rais­ing Aware­ness and Under­stand­ing • No talks or walks this month

Flood Embank­ments Sur­vey • Landown­er event held on Feb­ru­ary 20^th at Boat of Garten Hall, report avail­able on our web­site Spey flood­bank con­di­tion report