Local people making their corner of rural Britain unique
This week
Saturday 17 January
Repeated Thursday 22 January
In this Week’s Open Country, Matt Baker is on a private estate in Gloucester in search of wild beavers
This spring the once native beaver is about to be reintroduced in the wild in Scotland for the first time in 500 years but not without complaints from those who fear they may upset salmon rivers and cause destruction. On this week’s Open Country Matt Baker travels to Gloucester to find the country’s first programme to reintroduce the rodents on a private estate. Lower Mill Estate introduced four beavers in 2005 under the guidance of Simon Pickering, Chairman of Gloucestershire Biodiversity Partnership. They soon became the first introduced beavers to breed in the wild but as Natural England have recently announced that they will no longer accept applications for this kind of programme in the future it could also be the last such haven for this contentious creature.
For Dr Phoebe Carter, biodiversity officer for the estate and Cotswold Water Park this means less opportunity to study the long toothed mammal that could bring huge benefits for to up to 32 different species and help with flooding brought on by climate change.
The estate is also home to much more rare wildlife that have made their homes next to the largest collection of modernist architecture in a rural setting created by Richard Reid.
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