Beaver kits born in Cairngorms National Park for second year running
Five beaver kits have been born in Cairngorms National Park for the second year in a row – after a 400-year hiatus.
The kits have been captured on camera at two separate sites in the park, in the Scottish Highlands, and hopes are high more may be born on other sites.
Beavers were first released into the park less than two years ago in a bid to establish a 'healthy, sustainable' population.
The Upper Spey river catchment provides an ideal habitat of wetland and lochs, and it is hoped the beavers will restore the landscape, helping combat climate change and boosting biodiversity.
In the autumn, a third round of beavers will be released, amid hopes other land managers may offer to have them on their land.
Jonathan Willet, beaver project manager at the Cairngorms National Park Authority, said: 'It's so exciting to see the new kits emerging from the burrow, exploring the habitat around them with their parents and splashing in the water.
'We're hopeful that there may be even more kits at other sites, which we are monitoring closely over the next few weeks.
'Kits usually stay with their family for two years before leaving the family unit to find a mate.
'Those born last year – the first beaver kits in the Cairngorms National Park for 400 years – are now healthy juveniles who will be ready to start exploring and finding mates of their own over the next year.
'It's heartening to see that this year's breeding season has also been a success.'
The Cairngorms National Park Authority has a five-year licence with NatureScot, granted in December 2023, for 15 beaver pairs to be released over half a decade.
The first pair of beavers were released into Lochan Mor on Rothiemurchus in December 2023, with subsequent releases at sites owned by partners and private landowners.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
18 hours ago
- BBC News
Double demolition as Glasgow tower blocks to be blown down
Two well-known Glasgow tower blocks are to be blown down in a planned demolition on 305 and 341 Caledonia Road in the Gorbals will be brought down to make way for new New Gorbals Housing Association (NGHA) will replace the high-rise flats with more than 100 new social rent homes. It is understood the explosion will take place on Sunday afternoon with a large exclusion zone set up including the nearby Southern Necropolis cemetery and the Gorbals Rose Garden. The Caledonia Road flats were constructed in the 1960s as an answer to slum housing, overcrowding and struggled after World War Two and the Gorbals area became known as one of Europe's worst 40,000 people lived in deteriorating tenement the time the 1960s arrived, high rise flats were one solution to clear the accommodation and build new concrete blocks were often criticized for being poorly designed, damp, and failing to improve community life, although many local people spent happy lives in these flats before they started being rehoused in 2021. Many were eventually demolished in controlled explosions as part of ongoing regeneration spectacle of collapsing Gorbals tower blocks has attracted attention over the years. Towers in Sandiefield Road came down in 2013, with Norfolk Court's flats taken down in Stirlingfauld Place towers were blown down in large Queen Elizabeth Square towers came down in September 1993, ending in Helen Tinney died after being struck by debris as she watched the demolition. The future of the two Caledonia Road had been sealed by the costs involved in bringing dangerous cladding up to acceptable safety these two blocks come down, just one tower will remain, the neighbouring Waddell controlled blow down will be managed by contractors company has been liaising with other local residents on the arrangements for the demolition. About 850 households will be evacuated from the surrounding area before it can go exclusion zone will allow people to observe from a safe distance and people have been warned to expect a loud and dusty has been preparing the towers for several months - stripping the buildings and making sure viable materials can be said that it had worked with the housing association to save tonnes of material from going to landfill.
BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
The artist who swept Glasgow's streets for 30 years
When Allan Richardson was 17 he wanted to go to art school, but one day he returned home from school to find his dad had secured him an interview for a job with the council."All I wanted to do was my art," said Allan. "But my dad said to me, 'you can do your art but you have to have something to keep you'."Allan went to the interview and the following Monday he started work as a "litter boy", going round the streets and emptying the took a back seat over the next decade as he worked in various council jobs before settling on sweeping the streets of Glasgow's west end. For 30 years, until his recent retirement, Allan kept the city's Byres Road and its surrounding streets clean but he also made sure he had his paint palette and sketchbook in his pocket. Drawing and painting almost every day during his lunch break, and often with his handmade sketchbook balanced on the bar of his cart, Allan quickly became accustomed to searching for the west end's hidden gems."People walk by going to work or university, or they're on a phone and they're just walking ahead thinking about where they need to be, but there is so much all around them."That was the good thing about my job, I would see all of that and think 'that's an interesting feature on that building, I might come back and draw that'." Allan, who is now 60, said the area had changed a lot over the three decades he cleaned and painted said Byres Road has always been a centre for students, but the butchers and jewellery stores of the past have now been swapped for chain takeaways and coffee a plan in his head as he swept the streets, Allan has painted hundreds of buildings in the west end from the cobbled backstreets and popular student hangouts to the Kibble Palace in the Botanic Gardens and the iconic tower of Glasgow University's Gilbert Scott Building."There's a lot of good architecture in the west end and there's a lot of history, which I really like," he said. Part of Glasgow west end's story Allan said one of the reasons he stayed in his job so long was the people he met and spoke to each day."For some of the older people in the area, chatting to me would make their day as they maybe wouldn't speak to anyone for a couple of days," he of the people Allan spoke to and became a close friend of was renowned Scottish writer and artist Alasdair Gray."I used to sweep his street," said said he had no idea who Gray was but the paintbrushes in his window had caught his attention as he passed by, so the next time Allan saw him, he asked if he was an artist."He invited me in to have a look around at his work but he never introduced himself," Allan said."It wasn't until later I discovered who he was, and I would chat to him like with any of the other locals."One day Gray asked Allan if he could draw him."I went to his flat and he sketched me," he said."A few years later, I discovered I was going to be on the new mural at Hillhead subway station after its refurbishment, which was fantastic."I can now go to the underground and see myself standing there with my brush as part of the story of the west end." Gray, who is best-known for his first novel Lanark, died in 2019. His Hillhead subway mural shows a panoramic and detailed sweep of the west end, from Byres Road looking east towards the centre of shows many of the streets Allan swept and drew for 30 years. Now retired, Allan said it's time to move on and learn something new as he hopes to do more art classes and explore new places in the city with his Glasgow Urban Sketchers group.
BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
Removal of hoarding at Gloucestershire Shire Hall welcomed
The removal of "eyesore" hoardings covering the front entrance to a city centre landmark has been "unsightly" barrier was put up at the entrance of Shire Hall in Gloucester last October to undertake "essential maintenance to damaged steps".In February, Gloucestershire County Council chiefs said the hoardings were not expected to be removed for several months while plans to alter the building's entrance were drawn up. However, they have now been taken Hall chiefs revealed in March that the entrance had to be decontaminated after "defecation and urination" on the front steps. Councillor Rebecca Trimnell said: "I really hope the work that has been done for good. I wouldn't want the hoarding to go up again for more months on end."Gloucester City Council leader Jeremy Hilton said he welcomed the removal of the "eyesore" said: "I'm delighted that the unsightly hoardings outside the main entrance to Shire Hall have finally been removed."Over time, they became an eyesore - completely out of place in a conservation area and so close to the cathedral."Their removal under the new Liberal Democrat administration has already made a noticeable improvement to the street scene. "It's a small but significant step in restoring pride in this important civic building."A council spokesperson confirmed that the current essential maintenance works have been completed and they do not have any further work planned.
