Dam fine: estate owners across UK queue up to reintroduce beavers

Beavers can regenerate landscapes, encourage wildlife and prevent flooding - and they have friends in high places

The must-have accessory for every English country estate was once a gothic folly, a ha-ha or a croquet lawn. Now it is a pair of beavers.

Landowners and large estates are racing to acquire licences to reintroduce the water-loving rodents, which were hunted to extinction in Britain 400 years ago.