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The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s Com­mit­ment to Beaver Mit­ig­a­tion in the Nation­al Park

The Park Author­ity is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing land man­agers in liv­ing along­side beavers. As the licence applic­ant we will provide addi­tion­al resource and be the primary point of con­tact for mit­ig­a­tion and man­age­ment in the Nation­al Park. The addi­tion­al sup­port being offered to busi­nesses, landown­ers and the gen­er­al pub­lic with­in the Park includes:

• Single, named point of con­tact with­in the Park Author­ity, the Beaver Pro­ject Manager
• Access to addi­tion­al staff and volun­teers to under­take monitoring
• Reg­u­lar mon­it­or­ing under­taken to detect the range and spread of beavers with­in the Nation­al Park boundary
• Dia­logue with landown­ers / man­agers and the pub­lic the Park Author­ity to identi­fy and map areas of high-impact
• Con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of the list of poten­tially high-impact sites
• Extens­ive pro­act­ive mon­it­or­ing will be under­taken on high-impact sites when beaver pres­ence is detected
• Landown­ers / man­agers con­tac­ted when beaver signs are detec­ted on their land
• Quick responses to requests for site visits
• The Park Author­ity will offer to make, on behalf of the landown­er / man­ager, any European Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies licence applic­a­tion that is required for mit­ig­a­tion works
• Addi­tion­al budget provided by the Park Author­ity, as the licence applic­ant, to fund small-scale mit­ig­a­tion activ­it­ies and remedi­al works not covered by the nation­al mit­ig­a­tion scheme, to be agreed between the landown­er / man­ager and the Park Author­ity on a case-by-case basis

Note: All mit­ig­a­tion licence applic­a­tions must pass the three European Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies Licen­cing Tests before they can be approved

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Scen­ario	Nation­al mit­ig­a­tion scheme	Park Author­ity added resource
Indi­vidu­al tree pro­tec­tion using weldmesh	Some pro­tec­tion of high value trees will be sup­por­ted by Mit­ig­a­tion Scheme. This excludes private gardens	Weldmesh provided and will be fit­ted by the Park Author­ity, if reques­ted by the landown­er, for a lim­ited num­ber of indi­vidu­al trees. Includes private gardens
Large-scale tree pro­tec­tion through fencing*	A lim­ited set of cir­cum­stances where exclu­sion fen­cing is con­sidered appro­pri­ate oth­er than as a tri­al or demonstration	Sup­port (mater­i­als and/​or fund­ing) for the install­a­tion of large-scale fen­cing will only be provided in excep­tion­al circumstances
Dam iden­ti­fied with­in two weeks of it being built	Remov­al at the landowner’s expense	Will remove the dam if reques­ted to do so by the landowner
Dam iden­ti­fied after two weeks. Landown­er does want that area dammed	Licence applic­a­tion by the land man­ager to NatureScot for dam remov­al. At the applicant’s expense	Will apply for a licence on behalf of the landown­er and if suc­cess­ful remove the dam, if reques­ted to do so
Dam accept­able but the extent of flood­ing is not	Flow devices sug­ges­ted. Licence applic­a­tion by the land man­ager. Install­a­tion car­ried out under licence by NatureScot	Will apply for a licence on behalf of the landown­er and if suc­cess­ful will install the flow device, if reques­ted to do so
Col­lapsed bur­rows affect­ing access	Nor­mally car­ried out by land man­ager at own expense. Viewed as	A budget to fund some remedi­al works is avail­able and this will be eval­u­ated on a case-by-case basis

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	repair rather than mit­ig­a­tion	eval­u­ated on a case-by-case basis
Destruc­tion of bur­row or lodge	Licence applic­a­tion by the land man­ager to NatureScot for destruc­tion of bur­row or lodge	Will apply for a licence on behalf of the landown­er and if suc­cess­ful will seek spe­cial­ist advice to deliv­er this
Beaver detec­ted in high-impact area	Not mapped by NatureScot	High-impact sites mapped. If beavers are present close to these sites, mon­it­or­ing fre­quency will be increased
Assess­ing and mon­it­or­ing flood embankments	Not under­taken by Nature Scot	An ini­tial sur­vey of the flood banks will be com­pleted in winter 2023⁄24 to provide a baseline of flood bank loc­a­tion and con­di­tion with peri­od­ic sur­veys thereafter
Impact on flood embankments	Landowner’s respons­ib­il­ity to remediate	Grant assist­ance will be avail­able for any breach in the flood banks in the Nation­al Park proven to be caused by beaver bur­row­ing where the flood bank was shown pre­vi­ously to be in good con­di­tion. Time lim­ited until March 2026

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	Licence applic­a­tion by the landown­er / man­ager for trans­lo­ca­tion	Under­take trans­lo­ca­tion licence applic­a­tion on behalf of landown­er / manager
The above mit­ig­a­tion tech­niques are not working	If suc­cess­ful, NatureScot trap and re-locate
Trans­lo­ca­tion is unsuc­cess­ful or there is no oth­er sat­is­fact­ory solution	The landown­er / man­ager applies for a leth­al con­trol licence	Under­take leth­al con­trol licence applic­a­tion on behalf of landown­er / man­ager If a licence is approved and the landown­er / man­ager would prefer, the Park Author­ity will arrange and pay for trained con­tract­ors to cull the beaver and will return the cada­ver to NatureScot
	If a licence is approved the landowner/​man­ager can cull the beaver and must return the cada­ver to NatureScot

* Beaver spe­cif­ic exclu­sion fen­cing is avail­able con­sist­ing of an upright and skir­ted sec­tion. This approach seeks to exclude beavers and hence its lim­ited use is expec­ted to pro­tect high value pub­lic interests.