Beaver Update

March 2026

Pete Short and Jonath­an Wil­let (25 March 2026)

Beaver Pop­u­la­tion Summary

Year 1 releases – 18. Year 2 releases – 15. Year 3 releases – 7. 2024 wild-born kits – 2 (from 2 fam­il­ies). 2025 wild-born kits – 18 (from 8 fam­il­ies). Total of 60 (includ­ing 1 beaver out­with the Nation­al Park boundary).

Activ­ity

• Rothiemurchus (Lochan Mor/​Lily Loch): Beavers still act­ive on the site. Some night­time activ­ity recor­ded on the cam­era, but very lim­ited. No beaver seen on a beaver watch on the 18 March.
• Kin­rara 1: Beavers are still act­ive on this site.
• Kin­rara 2: New mater­i­al on the lodge food cache, but beavers are reg­u­larly feed­ing on nearby ripari­an woodland.
• Kin­rara 3: Beavers are still act­ive on this site.
• Kin­rara 4: Lim­ited activ­ity on site, but a dense area of scent mound­ing was found upstream on the Spey, close to the down­stream extent of the Inshriach beaver ter­rit­ory, indic­at­ing a ter­rit­ory bound­ary. Fur­ther site invest­ig­a­tion required.
• Glen Tromie: Beavers are still act­ive on this site, fresh feed­ing activ­ity recorded.
• 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 1: 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.
• Loch Mor­lich 2: Two beavers released on the 19 March, both com­ing to the feed­ing piles/​camera.
• Aviemore area: New feed­ing signs along the Spey above and below the Old Bridge Inn seen/​reported this month. Fur­ther sur­vey planned in April.
• Kin­gussie Graz­ings: A beaver is still act­ive on this site, fresh feed­ing signs recor­ded. Mul­tiple bur­rows found on a small island in the Spey.

Sites out­with Kin­gussie to Aviemore

• Crom­dale beaver. The site is still used with fresh feed­ing signs, trails and a food cache recor­ded this month, although it is sus­pec­ted to be using oth­er nearby sites too.
• Gar­mouth beaver. No new reports.
• Lag­gan Bridge. Fresh feed­ing signs seen and a sus­pec­ted beaver heard submerging.
• 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. Single beaver seen on cam­era this month.
• Cairngorms Nation­al Park | River Spey beaver report 2025 this was pub­lished on the web­site on the 23 March.

Rais­ing Aware­ness and Understanding

• 2 March. Site vis­it to Del­bog to meet the new owners.
• 4 March. Site vis­it to Spey Bridge woods (Achn­agon­al­in) to look at ancient Aspen Trees.
• 6 March. Spey Sed­i­ment man­age­ment & Trans­fer meeting
• 10 March. Beaver Talk for ​“Not the Rur­al”, Kin­gussie. 19 in attendance.
• 12 March. Beaver Walk for Kin­gussie High Juni­or Rangers. 18 in attendance.
• 12 March. Beaver watch with two loc­al Primary 7’s. 4 in attendance.
• 18 March. High­land Coun­cil Eco­lo­gist — Beaver Train­ing. 7 in attendance.
• 20 March. Mon­it­or­ing and Mit­ig­a­tion meet­ings. Cancelled.
• 24 March. UDC Site vis­it to Glen­more. 15 stu­dents and Lecturers.
• 25 March. Cairngorm Beaver Group meeting.

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.