Wetland ARCHITECTS

As the landmark River Otter Beaver Trial draws to an end, what has it taught us about the way these industrious dam builders influence the form and function of our wild places?

- Sophie Pavelle

Marching over the bridge in Otterton, Devon, I steal a glance to the river below. It’s mid-March, and this is my final excursion before national lockdown.

Brown and churning, the river scurries another two miles to Budleigh Salterton, where it spills into the sea. It’s chilly and overcast, but spring is well on its way. A preening mallard murmurs sweet nothings at the edge of the bank; a bumblebee loses itself in blackthorn blossom.

Mark Elliott, project lead for Devon Wildlife Trust’s River Otter Beaver Trial, strides ahead.

Delighted, he suddenly crouches by coppiced aspen – the woody victim of an unmistakable assailant. A closer look reveals a repetition of linear grooves carved into a now pencil-shaped stump. “Classic beaver signs,” says Elliott.

A host of gnawed branches, felled trees and stick piles are scattered around the riverbank, all signs that we’re in beaver territory. After four centuries bereft of these native wetland architects, hunted to extinction in Britain for their fur and castoreum (an anal secretion used in perfumes, flavouring and early medicines), wild beavers are back – hopefully for good.

Today, in this glorious valley, I am wandering through one of about 17 beaver ‘territories’, each of which is home to three or four individuals. In this year of global uncertainty, and during a time of unprecedented species loss across the planet, this remarkable conservation story in a quiet corner of Devon is also one of hope.