Beaver Update

Janu­ary 2026

Jonath­an Wil­let (30 Janu­ary 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. Activ­ity reduced due to the lochan freez­ing, open water beside the lodge had been cre­ated by the beavers access­ing their food cache.
• Wild­land 1: Some small dia­met­er Aspen have been felled felling, the lar­ger felled trees con­tin­ue to be bark stripped, in the ​“warm­er” weather.
• 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. Water depth gauges will be installed either side of the dam in late March.
• 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. Due to the cold weath­er after the release, feed­ing at the cam­era traps will con­tin­ue to mid-February.
• 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: No new feed­ing signs reported.
• Kin­gussie Graz­ings: A beaver is still act­ive on this site.

Sites out­with Kin­gussie to Aviemore

• Crom­dale beaver. The site is now used intermittently.
• Gar­mouth beaver. No new reports.
• Lag­gan Bridge. The loc­a­tion of feed­ing signs and the activ­ity of this beaver has remained con­stant, so site vis­its will move to a monthly fre­quency. If the situ­ation there changes then we will review the fre­quency of visits.
• Boat of Garten. A single beaver is occupy­ing a bur­row there. The loc­a­tion of feed­ing signs and the activ­ity of this beaver has remained con­stant, so mon­it­or­ing will move to monthly visits.
• Grant­own. Between the A95 bridge and the Cairn Dis­til­lery. First feed­ing signs repor­ted on the 29 Decem­ber. Feed­ing signs found from the bridge to The Cairn Dis­til­lery on the Achn­agon­al­in side of the river. No per­man­ent bur­row or lodge found yet, weekly sur­vey­ing con­tin­ues. The landowners/​man­agers have been informed.

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.

Rais­ing Aware­ness and Understanding

15 Janu­ary. Atten­ded C2030 Com­munity drop-in event at Boat of Garten Hall. We spoke to 15 people about beavers. 20 Janu­ary. Met with Simon Crozi­er, Head Ghil­lie at Castle Grant, at Boat of Garten to dis­cuss beaver field signs and beavers and Sal­mon fish­er­ies. 21 Janu­ary. Atten­ded an Aspen Bristle Moss trans­lo­ca­tion meet­ing, look­ing at suit­able sites for the trans­lo­ca­tion of this moss from a fallen bough to a new site on the estate. Beaver and Aspen were dis­cussed. 21 Janu­ary. JW gave an online beaver talk to 28 Park Author­ity Volun­teer Rangers.

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.