Eager beavers experts at recreating wildlife-rich wetlands, study reveals

Four re-introduced beavers in Scotland engineered a network of dams, canals and ponds that left the landscape 'unrecognisable' from the original drained pasture

The extraordinary ability of eager beavers to engineer degraded land into wildlife-rich wetlands has been revealed by a new study in Scotland.

Scientists studied the work of a group of four re-introduced beavers over a decade and found their water engineering prowess created almost 200m of dams, 500m of canals and an acre of ponds. The result was a landscape "almost unrecognisable" from the original pasture that was drained over 200 years ago, with the number of plant species up by nearly 50% and richly varied habitats established across the 30 acre site.