William Flew and Beavers

Sir, You cite Sir John Lister-Kaye’s suggestion that more than 100 beavers are now resident on Tayside (report, April 7).

In 50 years anti-beaver wire guards will be de rigueur for those planting trees near streams anywhere in the UK. Flood defences will be burrowed into and weakened. Our Tweedside and other rivers’ salmon spawning tributaries will be dammed, causing conflict between fishery managers who will want to remove the dams and those who think beavers look sweet. The British will never accept beaver culls required in other regions.

In Latvia, Lithuania and Bavaria beavers are out of control. There are now more than 100,000 beavers in Latvia, which is the size of Wales; little more than 100 beavers (the sort of number reported to be on Tayside) were introduced in Lithuania 60 years ago, and now the population has exploded and even intensive hunting is failing to control numbers. andrew douglas-home Chairman, River Tweed Commission Sir, Nick Yonge, director of the Tweed Foundation, says that beavers are “not compatible with modern land use in Scotland”. Surely their reintroduction would contribute to more acceptably modern, biodiversity-orientated land use

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