Monthly beaver update - September 2026

Beaver Update

Septem­ber 2026

Pete Short and Jonath­an Wil­let (10 Octo­ber 2026)

Beaver Pop­u­la­tion Summary

Year 1 releases – 18 Year 2 releases – 15 Year 3 releases – 7 Total = 40

2024 wild-born kits – 2 (from 2 fam­il­ies) 2025 wild-born kits – 18 (from 8 fam­il­ies) 2026 wild-born kits – 15 (from 8 fam­il­ies) Total = 35

Total of 75 (includ­ing, pos­sibly, 2 beavers out­with the Nation­al Park bound­ary – Fochabers/​Spey Mouth).

Activ­ity

• Rothiemurchus (Lochan Mor/​Lily Loch): Beavers still act­ive on the site. No kits seen dur­ing the kit watch peri­od. Annu­al land­scape assess­ment com­pleted (year 3). Scattered feed­ing signs upstream of Aviemore along the Spey.
• Kin­rara 1: Beavers are still act­ive on this site. The exist­ing beaver dam has breached and the level of Loch Alvie is drop­ping (see Mit­ig­a­tion section)
• Kin­rara 2: Beavers are still act­ive on this site.
• Kin­rara 3: No beavers seen on site this month.
• Kin­rara 4: Lim­ited activ­ity on site. The low (4m by 30cm) dam on the out­flow of the Bogach has been sub­merged by the increase in water levels after the heavy rains in late September.
• Glen Tromie: Fresh feed­ing activ­ity upstream from the release site on the Tromie, almost all Row­an trees.
• Insh Marshes: Beavers still act­ive on 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. One sub-adult seen at 1130 dur­ing the canoe survey.
• Aviemore area: No repor­ted activ­ity this month. This area will be sur­veyed on land and by canoe in September.
• Kin­gussie Graz­ings: Some fresh feed­ing activity.

Sites out­with Kin­gussie to Aviemore

• Gar­mouth beaver: One report of two beavers in Fochabers/​Spey Mouth area – still to be confirmed.
• Lag­gan Bridge: Fresh feed­ing signs seen along the Spey.
• Boat of Garten: Feed­ing activ­ity recor­ded up and down­stream of the burrow.
• Grant­own between the A95 bridge and the Cairn Dis­til­lery: Fresh activ­ity found.
• River Nethy (below the Telford bridge): Single beaver seen on cam­era earli­er in the month.

Mon­it­or­ing and Mit­ig­a­tion Plan Actions

• Monthly patrols of release sites undertaken.
• His­tor­ic beaver dam remov­al site. A single beaver was seen on a trail cam­era twice this month.
• One com­plete dam was built on the inflow river to Loch Mor­lich in early Septem­ber, near the Hay­field (10m long and 45cm high) and two oth­er attempts at dam­ming in the area – ongo­ing bi-weekly mon­it­or­ing tak­ing place in com­mu­nic­a­tion with part­ner organ­isa­tions and the landown­er. The dam was par­tially breached after the 8 Septem­ber fol­low­ing heavy rain and has now almost com­pletely washed away. Weekly mon­it­or­ing of the site.
• Weekly site vis­its to the Kin­rara dam, mon­it­or­ing the water levels on Loch Alvie. The dam was being added to and rose from 1m to 1.3m between July and Septem­ber. Two adja­cent landown­ers raised their con­cerns about the impact on their access roads and it was agreed to apply for a licence to notch the dam to lower the water level and then install a flow device. The licence was gran­ted on the 24 Septem­ber two days after it was applied for. By the is time the heavy rain of the Tues­day and raised the water level enough to breach the dam and the water was flow­ing very strongly through it. The water level of Loch Alvie had dropped 28cm by the 2 Octo­ber, so weekly mon­it­or­ing is resum­ing and if the beavers leave the dam with the breach open, no fur­ther action will be taken.
• Large trees that fell over a year ago into the River Nethy Con­flu­ence that were col­lect­ing debris were ini­tially repor­ted as a beaver dam. A site meet­ing with the Spey Fish­ery Board, the landown­ers and ten­ant farm­er was arranged the day after the call about this to the Beaver Team. As the water was flow­ing over the struc­ture it could not be determ­ined that it was a dam on the day of the site vis­it. The next day the water level had dropped, and the Beaver Pro­ject Man­ager vis­ited the site and determ­ined it was not a beaver dam. Sub­sequently the mater­i­al and fallen trees were par­tially removed by the Spey Fish­ery Board staff, with landown­er agree­ment, as they felt the mater­i­al was imped­ing sal­mon pas­sage upstream. A meet­ing to dis­cuss woody mater­i­al in this part of the Nethy, as well as fish pas­sage, flood­ing and erosion is being arranged in November.
• Beavers have been feed­ing on 60+cm dia­met­er Aspens on the shores of Loch Alvie, this was noted on the 25 Septem­ber dur­ing the canoe sur­vey. A later site vis­it determ­ined that of the sev­en large trees there, three had been felled. It was decided to pro­tect two of the four remain­ing trees and also anoth­er tree at Allt Dib­heach (Loch Alvie outflow).
• Meet­ing with Rothiemurchus Estate to dis­cuss vis­it­or use of the Lochan Mor site and the fact that some people have been stand­ing on top of the beaver lodge. It was agreed to install people coun­ters at the Inver­druie and Milton Cot­tage ends of the access track and pre­pare new sig­nage for close to the beaver lodge explain­ing about the leg­al status of beavers and what con­sti­tutes illeg­al dis­turb­ance to them.
• Sus­pec­ted new beaver ter­rit­ory near the con­flu­ence of the Tru­im. A site vis­it with the landown­er has been arranged in Novem­ber to dis­cuss beaver eco­logy, look at the feed­ing signs and walk the riverb­ank to see if a bur­row is visible.

Rais­ing Aware­ness and Understanding

• Cairngorms Beaver Group meet­ing, 22 September
• Mon­it­or­ing and Mit­ig­a­tion Group meet­ing, 23 September
• Led walks in Glen­more for EuroW­ild­cat con­fer­ence del­eg­ates. 50 participants
• Manned a beaver stand of the NPUK con­fer­ence. 40 participants.
• Led canoe day for NPUK con­fer­ence del­eg­ates. 12 participants
• Led a Beaver Walk to the Acres, Kin­gussie as part of the Badenoch Her­it­age Fest­iv­al. 30 participants

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.

Sum­mary of the Beaver Field Sign Canoe Sur­vey of the Spey

Septem­ber 25 to 2 October

Fri­day 25 September

Loch Mor­lich and Loch Alvie There was not a great deal of fresh beaver feed­ing signs found round Loch Mor­lich, the bulk of the feed­ing was in the inflow to Loch Mor­lich, it is also where the greatest dens­ity of wil­lows is. There is a bit of feed­ing activ­ity on the out­flow of Loch Mor­lich, The Luineag, but this may just be the beavers from the inflow. Loch Alvie showed plenty feed­ing around the loch side. This seems to be why the dam was increased in heigh to allow easi­er access to the trees there. Most of the feed­ing activ­ity is from the memori­al pen­in­sula to the north­ern end of the loch.

Monday 28 September

Spey Dam to Lochan Uvie Beaver feed­ing sign was found on almost all the pal­at­able trees on this stretch, how­ever large stretched has no or very few pal­at­able trees, mainly the sec­tions with flood embank­ments. Poor con­di­tion of riverb­anks and flood embank­ments was noted where there was erosion caused by sheep and cattle have access­ing to these areas. The Lag­gan beaver was still act­ive on site. A sus­pec­ted ter­rit­ory was found upstream of the con­flu­ence of the Tru­im and Spey, there was a good amount of fresh feed­ing signs to indic­ate that the beaver was liv­ing there.

Tues­day 29 September

Lochan Uvie to Kin­gussie Beaver feed­ing sign was found on almost all the pal­at­able trees on this stretch. There was a large stretch of Alder dom­in­ated (unpal­at­able) ripari­an wood­land down to New­ton­more Golf course. Very few feed­ing signs found here. Some fee­ing on wil­lows along the banks at Pit­main Farm and on Syca­mores at The Dell, Kin­gussie. No indic­a­tion of a ter­rit­ori­al beaver as the feed­ing was of vari­ous ages and not concentrated.

Wed­nes­day 30 September

Kin­gussie to Dal­faber Known ter­rit­or­ies con­firmed through Insh Marshes and Kin­craig. More feed­ing upstream of the Inshriach ter­rit­ory, there are more beaver there, so they are mov­ing fur­ther afield to eat. Anoth­er ter­rit­ory on the Spey at Kin­rara. No sign of a ter­rit­ory in the Aviemore stretch of the Spey.

Thursday 1 October

Dal­faber to Grant­own-on-Spey A new ter­rit­ory is sus­pec­ted between Dal­faber and Kin­churdy, again reg­u­lar feed­ing signs of vari­ous ages along the river. Lots of activ­ity on the island at the Cairn Distillery.

Fri­day 2 October

Grant­own-on-Spey to Advie Bridge. One feed­ing sign was seen on an exposed pine root, no evid­ence of beaver activ­ity oth­er than that on the whole stretch. The dom­in­ant ripari­an wood­land here is Alder and the river loses height, so is notice­able faster flow­ing than the oth­er four stretches we paddled.

Sum­mary

Beaver feed­ing activ­ity is more wide­spread on the Spey than last year, as you would expect with an expand­ing pop­u­la­tion. There were two new sus­pec­ted ter­rit­or­ies found, bring the total to 15 in the upper Spey catch­ment, almost all of these are on the Spey. Beaver bur­rows were very hard to find, although they are the struc­tures that beavers are using to live in, on the Spey. Over time these should become more obvi­ous. The beavers are still favour­ing the best avail­able feed­ing hab­it­at, so at the moment the loc­a­tion of pro­spect­ive new ter­rit­or­ies can be pin­pointed fairly accurately.