The beaver population grows and causes more and more nuisance. National beaver policy is needed: ‘What does the beaver want? What do we want? ‘

Normally the water is half a meter or a meter higher ”. The dead trees are clearly visible in the lake in Buitenpolder Heerewaarden due to the low -quality water. They lie, bone white in color, across the landscape. On the other side is a beaver castle. Normally it would be partly hidden under the water and grow under the high grass between, sink and forget men.

“The area is completely ruined by the beaver,” says Bevermanager Kees Schep. “The beavers provide underwater forests, which are fantastic for young fish and insects. That is very nice for biodiversity.” Speed ​​with its boots in the muddy bank, leaning on the stick that he just used to switch barbed wire.

De Bever was extinct in the Netherlands for a long time, but has been deported in various nature reserves for his contribution to Dutch biodiversity since the 1980s. In 2012, when that happened in the Flevopolder, it was not thought that they would ever cause so much damage that ‘beaver policy’ would be needed. Ten years ago there were 1,450 beavers in the Netherlands. Now there are about seven thousand, according to an estimate from 2023 – and the population is growing. Moreover, the animal also appears to be able to camp outside large nature reserves.

Zoom in

The government, provinces, Rijkswaterstaat, Water Boards and ProRail therefore presented a ‘national approach to sustainable beverage management’ on Tuesday. The scope: De Bever is a keeper in the Dutch landscape, so requires a structured approach.

The beaver is also increasingly causing nuisance. Last week wrote The Limburger About beavers gnaw at the trees in the suburbs of Gulpen. In 2022, a beaver family, ancient beech trees on the Amerongen estate. The year before, ProRail was unable to let the train from Groningen to Assen run after a railway subsidence by a Beverhol in the slope.

Zoom in

Water boards experience the most burden, because beavers sometimes want to dig in dikes or ditches. In 2023 they founded damage to 396 and 297 places in the water system in Limburg and the Aa and Maas water board respectively, according to data from the Union of Water Boards. The costs for recovery after beaver damage have more than tripled for the water boards in four years, from 251,000 euros in 2019 to 836,089 euros in 2023.

Muskrats

Together with colleague Robin Lamers, Bevermanager Schepers keep an eye on the beavers in front of the Rivierenland Water Board. The beaver aroused his interest. “Not only the animal itself, but also how we deal with it as a structured Netherlands.” And we have to deal with it: unlike, for example, the muskrat, the protected beaver may not usually be fired.

Schep used to be, just like Lamers muskrat fighter. They are increasingly getting the task of ‘poldering’ with the beaver. “We are always looking for an interim solution: what does the beaver want? What do we want?”

Scoop welcomes the rural beaver approach, because for him it will save a lot of paperwork. Muskrat management Rivierenland works for five provinces, and all use those own rules. “Before we are allowed to dig a cave, we put sticks in front of the cave. But which stick you can use for that, differs by province.”

The bureaucracy has already become less, says Schep. “In the past it could take months to apply for a permit, nowadays it is more often about days or weeks.” In 2021, for example, the carriers of the national approach founded the Bever Knowledge Center to collaborate more. Before that, parties were inventing the wheel itself, says Schep. “We already have quite a bit of expertise at the water boards, but organizations such as ProRail or Rijkswaterstaat had to start at Nul.”

Zoom in

The National Bever approach must also determine who will pay for preventive measures. “Previously there was still a madman,” says Schep. “Does that lie with the empire or at the water board? That all has to be worked out, but that clarity will at least come now.” It is about large amounts: Since 2022, according to its own data, the Rivierenland Water Board spent more than 400,000 euros on supplies, such as beaver -resistant gauze that is laid out in dyke reinforcement projects.

According to Schep, there is not yet an end to the growth of the Dutch beaver population. That mainly means further spread over new areas, because beavers are very territorial. In Limburg and between the Maas and the Lower Rhine there are already many, but other provinces can also count on the rise of the Bever. “In Friesland alone, they estimate that if you did not send the population, there is room for seven thousand copies.”

The national plan still has to work out where Bevers are given priority, and where people don’t want them. Also for areas with few beavers.

Yet the approach itself remains ‘tailor -made’, says Schep. No river is the same, and therefore no beaver behaves the same. “If we remove a dam, will he rebuild it? Or tries to reach a food supply? Sometimes we see that a beaver is building a dam in a ditch to push the water so that he can go to a corn field.”

Zoom in

Zoom in

Climate -proof

The Bouwgrage Bever does not only damage, says Schep. In the Netherlands, beaver construction works can help combat drying out by climate change. “The beaver dams create lakes, and then the water has more time to sink into the ground. For example, with the flanks of the Veluwe that can be very valuable, the beavers are just coming.”

“We will have to make our entire country climate -proof, so we can hopefully include the beaver in those projects in the future.”

Yet it remains difficult to put beavers in the hand of people, he thinks. “I especially think that in the Netherlands we could leave some more room for unpredictability, the whims of nature. That we take that into account when we build.”