Monthly Beaver Update - March 2025

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Beaver Update March 2025

Activ­ity

• Rothiemurchus (Lily Loch): Lodge appears to be poten­tially expand­ing lodge. Beaver seen 12 March mud pack­ing and adding to lodge. Some act­ive feed­ing signs on the east bay
• Wild­land 1: The cam­era on the lodge not been pick­ing up any beaver on cam­era. How­ever, beavers have been con­sist­ently present on the cam­era at a wind-blown Aspen.
• Wild­land 2: Lodge is very high (2.5 metres!) and inac­cess­ible from land. Act­ive feed­ing signs through­out the ​“cut­ting yard” area in addi­tion to felling activ­ity on the loch. Lots of dis­tinct beaver canals
• Insh Marshes. Two lodges on the reserve and one just out­side the reserve have been iden­ti­fied and con­tin­ue to be used
• Wild­land 3: There has been bark feed­ing on the human felled tree at the first feed­ing sta­tion, also a fresh scent mount. The last beaver activ­ity recor­ded cam­era was on 25 Feb
• Wild­land 4: No sig­ni­fic­ant changes to main lodge, although the poten­tially ​“prac­tice lodge” has a huge increase in the num­ber of sticks in the water in front of it. The dam on the out­flow has had more mater­i­al added, mostly earth, so the depth of water on the loch side has increased. Land man­agers have repor­ted fur­ther beaver signs away from the release site
• Inshriach. The beavers have been explor­ing on the Spey and feed­ing on wil­lows there. Activ­ity is focused on a (some­times) island on the Spey. Fresh feed­ing signs present and beaver fae­ces on the island point. A bank lodge was iden­ti­fied, and landown­er is aware of loc­a­tion. One of the cam­er­as placed on an act­ively being felled tree is con­sist­ently pick­ing up beavers on video
• Loch Mor­lich: Activ­ity focused on the Abhainn Ruigh Eun­achan (inflow), with feed­ing signs from road bridge to point. Scent mound also iden­ti­fied near the foot bridge. The cam­era trap on the river is infre­quently pick­ing up beavers
• Aviemore: No recent activ­ity recorded
• Kin­gussie Graz­ings: Beavers not seen on cam­era since 25.02.2025 when water levels were sig­ni­fic­antly high­er. Over­all activ­ity has been lim­ited, but there are the occa­sion­al fresh­er signs of some bark gnaw­ing, sned­ding and tracks. The site own­er found anoth­er beaver bur­row on his land, this has par­tially col­lapsed and a licence to fill in the col­lapsed por­tion will be applied for by the Park Author­ity on behalf of the landown­er. Weekly vis­its are continuing

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Sites out­with Kin­gussie to Aviemore

• A single, small, par­tially gnawed Row­an was found down­stream of the A95 bridge over the Dul­nain. No oth­er feed­ing signs seen nearby. It is sus­pec­ted that the gnaw­ing was by the Fochabers beaver on its jour­ney downstream
• Crom­dale beaver kit. Still present on site
• Fochabers beaver. A beaver feed­ing signs were found on the 2 March on a back­wa­ter of the Spey near Fochabers. Park Author­ity staff vis­ited on the 3 March and the site is being mon­itored. Cam­era foot­age of the beaver’s tail indic­ates that it is an adult beaver. Only one beaver has been seen on camera

Mon­it­or­ing and Mit­ig­a­tion Plan Actions

• Weekly patrols of release sites and poten­tial high impact areas have been undertaken
• At beaver dam remov­al site. No activ­ity recor­ded on cam­era since the 25 February

Rais­ing Aware­ness and Understanding

• 29 March. NES­BREC Record­ers For­um. Bring­ing Beaver back to the Park talk. 100 attending
• 27 March. Beaver Ranger accom­pa­ny­ing Kin­gussie High Juni­or Ranger canoe day.