Mailbox: feedback on beavers

We open up the Naked Scientists mailbag to see what you've been sending in...
03 March 2020

BEAVER-IN-WATER

A beaver chewing on a twig in water

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Katie Haylor and Chris Smith open up the Naked Scientists mailbag to see what you've been sending in...

Chris - Now we heard from John last week, he got in touch about the piece on beavers. He says, and just for context, we were explaining that there is a project to add beavers back into the wild following their extinction about 400 years ago in the UK, because they're regarded as important ecosystem engineers and therefore might be able to help us mitigate some of the flood risk in the flooding that we've been having in the UK recently.

John says "where I live, we have lots of beavers. They plug up culverts because they don't like the sound of running water. They create large dams, eat the local vegetation and then move on. A few years later the dams burst and then they wash out roads. My picture of reality is very different from the one I heard on the programme. I'm sure they are good in some senses but what was said was not even handed." So John obviously not a fan of beavers.

Katie - And if you want to get in touch with any comments or questions you've got about the show, you can do so via email. It's chris@thenakedscientist.com, we always like hearing your thoughts and feedback and also if you'd like to leave us a review, you can do so wherever you get your podcasts.

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