Will the beaver be banned in Drenthe and Groningen? The beaver is gnawing at our safety to such an extent that they may be shot. Interesting detail: 15 years ago the animals were collected from abroad to release them into Drenthe’s nature. As enrichment, was the thought at the time.
Bertil Zoer, ecologist at Het Drentse Landschap, was behind the project and personally collected the animals from abroad because they had disappeared in the Netherlands. 26 were collected from Germany in 2008 and 2011. The idea was to enrich nature. The rodents have now become so successful that the population has grown to around 400 beavers in Drenthe and Groningen. There are a total of 6,000 in the Netherlands. And there is no room for that many beavers in the Netherlands, says Zoer in the Radio Drenthe program Cassata.
“We are in a country where large areas are below sea level,” Zoer explains. “This applies here in the north to the central part of Groningen. In the canals that flow through it, the water level is higher than the surrounding landscape. This means that those canals are located in the quays. If you get beavers in such an area Then problems arise.”
Beavers can dig holes in dikes or quays and dangerous situations can arise in areas below sea level. The water board has designated special areas where rodents can settle. These are areas that are above sea level.
The water board foresaw a major social safety problem a few years ago, says Zoer. That is why, until now, the choice has always been to capture beavers in risk areas and then move them to non-risk areas. “At that time, there was still plenty of room to catch such beavers and bring them back to, for example, Hoog-Groningen or Hoog-Drenthe. We have done that several times and it works perfectly.”