Monthly beaver update - September 2025

Beaver Update Septem­ber 2025 Jonath­an Wil­let (6 Octo­ber 2025)

Beaver Pop­u­la­tion Sum­mary Year 1 releases – 18 Year 2 releases – 15 2024 wild-born kits – 2 (from two fam­il­ies) 2025 wild-born kits – 18 (from eight fam­il­ies) Total = 53 (includ­ing 1 beaver out­with the Park boundary)

Note The 2025 beaver sur­vey of the Spey is being final­ised and will be cir­cu­lated in October.

Activ­ity

• Rothiemurchus (Lily Loch): Beavers still act­ive on the site.
• Wild­land 1: A large Aspen was felled and con­tin­ues to be bark-stripped (50% of the bark has been stripped, 6m in total) and de-limbed. A dam 6 meters long and 1 metre high has been built in an out­flow burn of a loch. This has led the loch to reach nor­mal winter levels, after 6 months of very low sum­mer levels. The rain over the week­end of the 4 and 5 Octo­ber has caused the dam to over­top, with a 10cm increase in the loch’s water level.
• Wild­land 2: A third kit was seen on cam­era, tak­ing this year’s total to 18.
• Insh Marshes. Beavers still act­ive on the site. One pair have moved from a lodge to a burrow.
• Wild­land 3: No change on site, no sign of a lodge or burrow.
• Wild­land 4: Pos­sible second bur­row found, the beavers are still act­ive on the site.
• Inshriach: Beavers are still act­ive on the site.
• Loch Mor­lich: Beavers are still act­ive on the site.

• Aviemore: Extens­ive feed­ing activ­ity on wil­lows along the banks of the Spey, from Allt na Criche to Dal­faber. A new ter­rit­ory or two may form there this Autumn.

• Kin­gussie Graz­ings: No sight­ings of a beaver on cam­era. Feed­ing activ­ity was seen around the mouth of the River Tromie.

Sites out­with Kin­gussie to Aviemore

• Crom­dale beaver kit. Not seen on cam­era since August, but feed­ing signs a couple of weeks old were seen in late September.
• Gar­mouth beaver. No new reports.
• Lag­gan Bridge. Fresh beaver feed­ing signs were seen dur­ing the canoe sur­vey in August. On-foot inspec­tions in early Septem­ber found more fresh feed­ing signs. This site is being vis­ited weekly to ascer­tain where the beaver is resid­ing. Cam­era traps will be installed when per­mis­sion from the landown­er is received, this will indic­ate if there are one or two beavers on site. The ten­ant farm­er and oth­er rel­ev­ant landown­ers have been informed and a What­s­App Group has been cre­ated to share the site vis­it information.

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.
• The Old Milton bur­row has been filled in.

Rais­ing Aware­ness and Understanding

• A Land­ward seg­ment about eDNA (envir­on­ment­al DNA) and hab­it­at mon­it­or­ing in rela­tion to beaver-induced changes was filmed in Glen­more and will be broad­cast on the 20 Novem­ber on BBC Scotland.
• Cairngorms Con­nect Con­fer­ence. 1 Septem­ber. Talk to 80 people about the project.
• Cairngorms Con­nect Con­fer­ence — Volun­teers. 4 Septem­ber. Walk to look at beaver signs in Glen­more, with 30 people.
• Inter­na­tion­al Beaver Sym­posi­um. 18 Septem­ber. 150 people (from 26 coun­tries) in three coaches vis­ited Glen­more and the Beaver Trail (Rothiemurchus) through the day.

• RSPB — North of Eng­land staff. 23 Septem­ber. Talk and site vis­it to Glen­more with 23 RSPB staff.

• Boat of Garten Res­id­ents. 26 Septem­ber. 30 loc­al res­id­ents atten­ded a drop-in ses­sion from 2 – 7pm and asked ques­tions about, ​“what would beavers do if they moved into Milton Loch and what assist­ance could the Park Author­ity provide?” The ses­sion was very pro­duct­ive. It reas­sured the indi­vidu­als who had con­cerns and were unaware of the beaver mit­ig­a­tion resources (namely staff time and mater­i­als) the Park Author­ity could offer to res­id­ents. This drop-in ses­sion was organ­ised as Milton Loch is highly likely to be col­on­ised by beavers in the near future, as it has excel­lent hab­it­at for beavers and is close to the Spey — the main dis­pers­al route for beavers locally.

• Grant­own Cli­mate Fest­iv­al. 26 Septem­ber. 8 people atten­ded a talk about the Bring­ing Beaver Back to the Park Project.