It would be a huge mistake for Labour to dam the beavers

The Guardian is reporting that No. 10 is set to delay plans to release beavers into the wild, potentially because it is seen by officials as a ‘Tory legacy’. Could it be that Labour’s Steve Reed is set to join a long line of Defra ministers who, having promised finally to legalise the reintroduction of beavers into the wild, end up backpedalling under pressure from rural lobbyists who have long decided beavers have no place in the countryside? The assorted vested interests, farming representatives and rural power cliques who direct countryside policy from the shadows dislike beavers on account of their astonishingly poor understanding of how nature actually works. Their lack of knowledge is in stark contrast with that of the public and most of the media which are gripped by beaver fever.

Just a decade ago, the average Brit had no idea that there had once been beavers in Britain.