cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/21070824

It’s 6pm on a freezing evening in the south of England, and the remote, muddy track I am on is forbiddingly dark and quiet. Local farmers have ceased their ploughing for the day. The kingfishers that dart the nearby waters are in their nests. And there are no dog walkers out for a late stroll.

But there is a different, more furtive kind of activity about to take place. Soon, a dark Ford Transit pulls up and its driver – a man in his fifties dressed in thick coat and scarf – rolls down the window and greets me with a hesitant “evening”. He is not alone. In the back of his van, cocooned in a metal crate and somewhat grumpy from four hours of confinement, is the illicit cargo of a large beaver.

Transported that very same day from Cornwall, the industrious mammal is being released into this water catchment as part of a campaign known as “beaver bombing” – where the animals are covertly distributed throughout the country in a bid to boost the species’ numbers in the wild.

Original article

Back in the 00s there was a Canadian nature show called The Nature Nut (hosted by John Acorn) that did an episode of dedicated to beavers. It featured a catchy kids tune Big Wet Rodent Day that got some internet attention back then... mostly in kids music circles- never mind what age I was. At some point people decided this celebratory day was July 26th and we'd celebrate the beavers, nutria, coypu, and alike every year.

Full Episode of the Nature Nut episode in question
Same episode, timestamped to the original song

With beavers large and muskrats small
We stop to celebrate them all
The glory of a beaver dam
That makes you say I am (that makes me say I am)
A big wet rodent fan.

"We are thrilled that after an absence of around 400 years we now have beavers back and breeding."

She added: "The beavers have put a lot of effort into building and maintaining their lodges and getting their family settled, showing great perseverance and resilience during their relocation and then during the floods we’ve had over the last year,"