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Anorak News | Too Eager Beaver

Too Eager Beaver

by | 28th, October 2005

‘IT sure is hot. It’s even hot enough for beavers. Look, there’s one in the Mail. He’s a fantastic swimmer, says the paper. He’s got razor-sharp front teeth.

‘Can anybody else hear someone chewing?’

And just look at those valves in his nostrils which allow him to keep cool under water for fifteen minutes.

But what’s the critter doing here? As the Mirror says, the native British species was hunted to extinction 500 years ago. Has the warm weather brought one back to life?

No. This beaver is one of six of the furry rodents (“77,400 hairs per square inch” – Mail) that Jeremy Paxton has released on his 500-acre estate in Gloucestershire.

Mr Paxton wants the animals to be reintroduced to Britain. Something the Sun’s topless Dannii is also keen on. “I love animals,” says she. “This is great news, just as nature intended.”

It’s all well and good for Dannii to go native, but Paxton’s no Mother Nature. And the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs is investigating whether or not Paxton has a licence to release the animals into the wild.

A spokesman for Defra says in the Mirror: “The Eurasian beaver is not a species ordinarily resident in Great Britain. Mr Paxton will therefore be committing an offence if he releases any beaver from captivity.”

But Paxton wants to do for the beaver what others have tried to do for the red kite, the white-tailed eagle, the great bustard and the pool frog.

“The main reason I’m doing this is that I want to repopulate the UK with beaver,” says he. Well, why not – humans haven’t been all that great for the country, so let’s give a different species a turn…’



Posted: 28th, October 2005 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink