My neighbour has kidnapped my beavers

My beavers have been kidnapped. A few months ago there were five of them living on my family’s farm on Bodmin Moor. Now there are none. I know where they are and I have received proof of life from their kidnapper, but he will not release them back to me or allow me to collect them and bring them home. I miss them and often walk along their stretch of river and past their dams with a tear in my eye.

I miss them and often walk along their stretch of river and past their dams with a tear in my eye

I was quite early to the beaver game. Back in 2018 it was still hotly debated among the UK farming community as to whether beavers, if reintroduced, would a) eat all the fish in our rivers; b) destroy all the trees along our rivers; c) clog the rivers with partially eaten logs; or d) flood thousands of acres of profitable high-yield farmland. I read a fair bit of evidence that contradicted these fears and a great deal more that expounded the benefit of these ecosystem engineers.

So began my first foray into the byzantine and sclerotic world of Natural England species reintroduction licensing. I applied for an A37 licence to release a non-native species into a large enclosure (even though beavers are a native species to Britain), an A03 licence to hold a wild animal in a cage or trap while carrying out health checks, and a European trapping licence so that I would be officially allowed to wear a Davy Crockett-style hat as I went about my business on the farm.