The sun was shining, people were gingerly paddling in the sea and dogs were being walked up and down the coast – a typical day on the beautiful Dorset coast. But the beachgoers probably didn’t know that just a few minutes inland, history was being made.
On Wednesday, at the National Trust’s Purbeck Heath nature reserve, four beavers were released from crates and crawled into Little Sea, a 33-hectare lake. They are the first beavers to be legally released in England, after 400 years of absence and a fight to return them to the landscape.
The trust says this is the perfect habitat for the creatures to roam free, with no fenced enclosures, because it is full of lakes and watercourses for the beavers to make their home. They have permission to release 25 on the peninsula but are starting with four and then making more releases in coming years if this one goes well.