Next steps for the Cairngorms National Park beavers 

The first year of the project bringing beavers back to the Cairngorms National Park is complete, and we are moving into the second year of work to restore this important species to our landscape. The project is on track, and the Park Authority is working with partners to progress with the next steps outlined in the licence granted by NatureScot in 2023.   

The licence allows for 15 pairs or families of beavers to be relocated to the National Park over a five-year period. Six pairs or families were released in the first year, the next stage set out in the application process is for further releases to help create a sustainable population within the National Park.  By releasing beavers close to each other, in high quality habitat, the chances of their young successfully finding new territories and mates are maximised, without having to travel far.  

We have been working closely with a team of beaver experts from the Beaver Trust to find suitable locations, working closely with landowners to identify the right kind of habitat in areas where beavers will thrive, and any impacts on existing land users are minimised. This has been crucial to the work of the reintroductions so far and is one of the reasons the beavers have settled in so well in their first year.    

After months of scoping, four sites have been identified: two on WildLand Limited, another on private land between Kingussie and Aviemore, and a final site belonging to Forestry and Land Scotland, amongst the quieter bays and lochans of the southern shores of Loch Morlich. New beaver families have so far been released on WildLand Limited sites with the further releases to follow in the coming weeks and months.  

The return of beavers to the Cairngorms National Park has been led by the Park Authority working closely with partners, land managers and local communities.  The Park Authority has direct lines of contact to many farmers and land managers in the upper Spey Catchment, both informally and formally through their representatives on the new Cairngorms Agriculture Advisory Group and the Beaver Monitoring and Mitigation Group. 

The Park Authority’s Beaver Project Manager, and our ranger service, will be out on the ground continuing to monitor all the beaver families released in the Cairngorms National Park closely. As they start to change the environment around them, we’ll be watching to see how they expand and improve our wetlands, enhancing water quality and creating better habitats for other creatures, and to ensure that any negative impacts are responded to quickly and efficiently in line with our monitoring and mitigation plan. 

You can keep up to date with the progress of all our beavers at cairngorms.co.uk/beavers