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Petition PE1815 Translocate Protected Beavers to Reduce Licensed Killing

Update from petitioner to Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, 22 November 2021

Consideration of Petition PE1815: Translocate Protected Beavers To Reduce Licensed Killing

The above petition, submitted by ourselves, asks the Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to minimise the need to kill beavers that cause serious damage to low-lying arable farmland by permitting the translocation of beavers to suitable habitat outside the current range of the species in Scotland. This would match the approach used to manage beavers, a European Protected Species, across Europe and the current proposals from DEFRA for beaver management in England.

This petition, with 16,785 signatures, was, until this year, the most signed Scottish Parliamentary petition of the previous 10 years, demonstrating the broad public support for the translocation of beavers to new river catchments in Scotland.

Consideration to date

Our petition, together with a SPICe briefing and submissions from the Scottish Government and submissions from ourselves, was considered by the Public Petitions Committee on 1st October 2020 when the Committee recommended that it be referred to the then Environment Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. We subsequently wrote to the Convenor of ECCLR to inform the Committee that evidence had come to light about legal flaws in the awarding of licences for lethal control of beavers by NatureScot and to note that we had opened pre-litigation dialogue with NatureScot. Our hope at the time was that the matter would be resolved without the need for formal legal action but we wanted to make the Committee aware of the developments, anticipating that it would suspend its plans to consider our petition until any legal issues had been resolved.

In the event, we were unable to secure the reassurances we were seeking from NatureScot and we felt that we had no option but to proceed to a crowdfunded judicial review. The verdict from the hearing was published on 21st October this year and is briefly summarised below. With the judicial review process complete, we are grateful to this Committee for opening its consideration of our petition.

Key points from the Petition

As NatureScot and many others have described, beavers are a keystone species that could be playing a major role in improving water quality, restoring biodiversity, and perhaps most critically, mitigating the effects of climate change in Scotland.

Levels of lethal control compared to translocation

In the two years following May 2019, 202 beavers - representing a fifth of the estimated population - were killed under licence to prevent damage to farmland. In the same time period, only 47 beavers were translocated, nearly all to flood mitigation and biodiversity enhancement schemes in England. This is in spite of the fact that in the overwhelming majority of cases, translocation is a proven and effective remedy for preventing beaver damage to farmland. NatureScot has identified over 105,000 ha of suitable habitat for beavers in Scotland, but current government policy prohibiting translocation to new Scottish river catchments, effectively prevents this key mitigation method from being used.

Failure to use the option of least harm for a protected species

NatureScot’s procedures for assessing licence applications to carry out management of beavers, a European Protected Species, conspicuously fail to require the option of translocation to be considered before a licence for lethal control is issued. As a result, beavers are lethally controlled under licence from NatureScot when trapping and relocation are perfectly possible, giving the lie to claims that “lethal control is used only as a last resort”.

We have asked NatureScot more than once why they are choosing to operate in this way but received no answer. We strongly suspect that while NatureScot would prefer to take a more progressive approach to beaver management, they were instructed to develop a licensing system that does not create an impediment to the levels of lethal control that were being used prior to beavers attaining legally protected status in 2019.

Judicial Review verdict

The verdict of the Court of Session supported some of NatureScot’s arguments, but most importantly found that it had ‘erred in law’ in the way it had issued beaver management licences. This means that every lethal control licence issued by the agency had been defective and issued unlawfully. Any new licence must now be issued along with clear reasons for issuing it on a case by case basis. Our legal advice is clear that these reasons must include an explanation of why a lethal control licence is issued in preference to non-lethal alternatives. The Court did not go so far as to say that NatureScot have erred in law in their current approach that does not prioritise translocation over lethal control, which is why this petition is before the Committee.

Opening for a win-win resolution

We believe that this verdict, by quashing NatureScot’s previous licences and requiring transparent reasons to be applied to any new licences, offers an opening to the Scottish Government to reset the board and create a win-win situation for farmers, beavers and the wider benefits society gets from their presence in the natural environment.

A holistic approach to beaver management needs to include provision for farmers to secure meaningful income from providing wildlife habitat along our riverbanks. The existence of such habitat along waterways will not only dramatically reduce beaver conflicts with farmland but it can also sequester carbon, increase biodiversity, improve water quality, mitigate drought and reduce downstream flooding.

We strongly support the principle that any proposed translocation must follow best practice by consulting with local communities that may be affected. We also support the continued availability of lethal control as a genuine last resort in beaver management. Changing policy to meet the statement made about beavers in the SNP-Green Party cooperation agreement by allowing NatureScot to licence beaver translocation to suitable habitat outside the current range will minimise the number of beavers that have to be killed, reduce pressure on affected farmers in Tayside and allow beavers to bring their positive climate and biodiversity impacts to a far greater area of Scotland.