Beaver Update

Feb­ru­ary 2026 Pete Short and Jonath­an Wil­let (4 March 2026)

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. Tree with goldeneye box on repor­ted to be fed on by a beaver – 3 boxes on trees loc­ated at site on a monthly site check, but none of these had been browsed by beaver. Passed on inform­a­tion to Strath­spey Goldeneye Study group. Some night­time activ­ity recor­ded on the cam­era, but very lim­ited. No beaver seen on a beaver watch on the 1 March.
• Wild­land 1: Beavers are still act­ive on this site.
• Wild­land 2: New mater­i­al on the lodge food cache, but beavers are reg­u­larly feed­ing on nearby ripari­an woodland.
• Wild­land 3: Beavers are still act­ive on this site.
• Wild­land 4: A fam­ily of 5 beavers have been released on this site and are set­tling in. Beavers are reg­u­larly vis­it­ing the brash piles with live stream cam­er­as are placed this month.
• Wild­land 5: Beavers are still act­ive on this site.
• Insh Marshes. Beavers still act­ive on the site and have explored nearly all of the reserve.
• Inshriach: Beavers are still act­ive on the site.
• Loch Mor­lich: Beavers are still act­ive on the site, with extens­ive felling of wil­lows and a few birches on the yel­low trail, beside Abhainn Ruighe Eun­achan (inflow to Loch Mor­lich). Main site of activ­ity is this month is the meet­ing point of this river with Loch Morlich.
• Aviemore area: New feed­ing signs along the Spey above and below the Old Bridge Inn seen/​reported this month
• Kin­gussie Graz­ings: A beaver is still act­ive on this site.

Sites out­with Kin­gussie to Aviemore

• Crom­dale beaver. The site is still used with fresh feed­ing signs this month, although it is sus­pec­ted to be using oth­er nearby sites too.
• Gar­mouth beaver. No new reports.
• Lag­gan Bridge. Reduced feed­ing activ­ity this month at this site, although some fresh sign. Assumed that this beaver has a bur­row in the Spey.
• Boat of Garten. A single beaver is occupy­ing a bur­row there. Small amounts of fresh feed­ing signs present, beaver is reg­u­lar on the trail camera.
• Grant­own. Between the A95 bridge and the Cairn Dis­til­lery. Site vis­its this month have included both sides of the river. Bur­row loc­a­tion is unknown, but there does not seem to be enough feed­ing signs to indic­ate a res­id­ent beaver.

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 on livestream camera.
• Bal­lie­furth – cal­lout to check a recently planted ripari­an plant­ing scheme. No beaver feed­ing signs seen on planted trees, although 2 nearby loc­a­tions had 2 – 3month old beaver feed­ing signs present. After con­sult­ing forestry col­leagues, advice offered on fen­cing and hare management.
• Tul­loch­grib­ben — as reques­ted by land man­ager. No beaver activ­ity (cur­rent or his­tor­ic) seen on the 3km of the Dul­nain sur­veyed there

Rais­ing Aware­ness and Understanding

• 2 Feb­ru­ary. Joined by a Ger­man ranger, who has worked with beavers, on monthly site visits
• 4 Feb­ru­ary. Site walk with Cairn dis­til­lery staff mem­ber, show­ing loc­al beaver field signs.
• 25 Feb­ru­ary. Met with a GIS/​beaver eco­logy gradu­ate work­ing in Wales. Morn­ing spent out at two beaver sites along the Spey, she spent 2 hours in the after­noon with Andy Smith on GIS/​record mapping.
• 26 Feb­ru­ary. Met with a loc­al wild­life guide who takes cli­ents to see beavers in the Glen­more area. Dis­cussed gen­er­al beaver eco­logy, eth­ic­al beaver watching/​disturbance, and beaver activ­ity at this site.
• 27 Feb­ru­ary FLS Site vis­its with Ross Wat­son FLS, North Region Envir­on­ment Advisor and Prof Jill Rob­bie Chair of the Scot­tish Beaver Advis­ory Group.

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.