KNOWLEDGE BASE

This text sought to reconstruct the history of the Eurasian beaver in Scotland. Using texts from over 400 years ago and archaeological remains, the authors retold this story, including where they lived, what role they had in society, and how the beaver was pushed to extinction in Scotland by the 16th century due to hunting and habitat loss. The text also discussed earlier reintroduction attempts acorss Britain and the potential for reintroductions in Scotland going forward - this is interesting to look back on from today's perspective!

The Eurasian beaver, once widespread in Europe, was largely driven to extinction in Britain by over-hunting. Written in 1995, this paper discussed the merits and downsides of bringing beavers back to Britain, suggesting that such an initiative could be a "fitting start to the millenium". Looking back, this is a fascinating text in the long struggle for beaver reintroduction. The authors assessed reintroduction programmes in 13 other European countries, and evaluated a range of biological, environmental, and social factors relating to the feasibility of beaver reintroduction in Britain.

In Britain, over 200 place names reference wolves, while only 20 refer to beavers - all of them in England. This paper collected and analysed these place names. Inevitably, this also required describing the names that British people have had for beavers over time in different Gaelic, English, and Norse languages. The authors noted that beaver place names didn't overlap very well with the fenland counties where most archaeological beaver remains have been found in England. Instead, it appeared that the beaver-referencing places were in counties with higher levels of woodland. Please note, this resource is not open-access.

Scientists measured the depth of sediment in eight beaver ponds in a National Park in the USA. They found that sediment accumulation was faster in these beaver ponds than in other North American forests. They also found that older ponds contained more organic matter, influencing the community of organisms living there and the long-term storage of matter. Their write-up recognised that more work was needed to recognise how much sediment came from the river and how much came from the beavers' own excavating activity. Please note, this resource is not open-access.

Giardiasis is an intestinal disease that can affect humans. In this experiment, the parasite which causes the disease - Giardia - was isolated from a number of different animals to assess their genetic diversity. One beaver sample from Canada was among those tested. High levels of genetic variation were found, along with evidence that the parasite could transfer between humans and other animals.