Canoeing and Looking Out for Beavers

Colleague told me about this place, I had no idea there beavers wild in Kent! Wild beavers have firmly established themselves from Sandwich to Ashford and even sometimes making appearances in central Canterbury, marking one of England's largest wild populations. The River Stour in Canterbury hosts one of England's largest wild beaver populations, successfully re-established over the last 10–20 years after extinction in the UK, with active colonies now breeding even in urban city areas.

Back in the 16th-century beavers went hunted to extinction in the UK for the fur, meat and castoreum, which is a musky secretion from the beaver scent gland that was heavily used in perfume, medicine and even food flavouring, yuk!  Whilst extinct in the UK they did survive in mainland Europe. Now there are 51 distinct territories in the Stour catchment in Kent, with hundreds of wild beavers around. When we canoe down the river we saw so many signs of the beaver of the river, with gnawed trees in that distinct beaver style, lodges which is a beaver dome shaped house and bankside slides.

Sadly we saw no beavers on this trip – which is of course what can happen when you are looking for wild animals – but we saw lots of evidence which was still super cool. It was still a very informative and fun experience, loved getting to canoe down the river and to get that experience of the river, love being on water. It is also so amazing that beavers have made a comeback and thankfully back in 2022, the European beaver finally became a protected species in England, following Scotland's leads, which means that beavers have species-level protection (so you need a licence to disturb them and their homes).