Beaver Fever

Today, the British countryside is a land of storybook estates and manicured hedgerows. A beautiful but unnatural panorama with very little “wild” left in it. That wasn’t always the case. Hundreds of years ago, before they were wiped out here, beavers sculpted a wilder landscape of vast wetlands that supported a myriad of other species. Now, a movement is underway to bring these ecosystem engineers back. Their famously busy work is increasing local biodiversity, reducing the flooding of villages, and restoring wilderness to a notoriously nature-deprived landscape. Can beavers help Britain once again hear the call of the wild?