![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/BeaverKit_withAdult_cSteveGardner_ScottishWildlifeTrust11.jpg\" "\\"BeaverKit_withAdult_cSteveGardner_ScottishWildlifeTrust\\"")
Beaver with Kit (Photo: Steve Gardner SWT)<\/p><\/div>A celebration of beavers in spring-time will take place in Scotland this weekend (19 – 20 March), as part of the first multinational beaver festival ever to be held across Europe. <\/p>\n
The Scottish Beaver Trial, the project undertaking the first trial reintroduction of beavers to Scotland, plans to run free events at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum and in Knapdale Forest, the trial area in mid-Argyll which is currently the home of 12 beavers, including two breeding families which are bringing up young kits born last spring. <\/p>\n
Rallied by Frenchman, Samuel Dubie, a beaver conservationist, organisers in other European countries, including France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany, are also set to host beaver-related events at the end of this month. <\/p>\n
Simon Jones, Project Manager for the Scottish Beaver Trial, said: \u201cTaking part in the \u2018Le Printemps des Castors\u2019 festival, or Beaver Spring as we\u2019ve called it, is important to our project. The festival marks the coming-together of beaver conservationists around Europe to celebrate a keystone species in spring-time, a time when people are naturally keen to get outdoors and enjoy wildlife. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re pleased to be bringing the beaver to Glasgow by putting on two events at Kelvingrove Museum. From 11.30 am to 3.30 pm on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 March, beaver experts from the Scottish Beaver Trial and the Scottish Wildlife Trust will be in the museum\u2019s West Hall running activities including \u2018mini beaver dam building\u2019 and a \u2018track the beaver\u2019 quiz. <\/p>\n
\u201cMeanwhile in Knapdale, Argyll, staff from the Scottish Beaver Trial and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland will be running free tours around the lochs which make up the beavers\u2019 territories there. Spaces for the Knapdale tours are limited to 20 people so booking is essential. The tours will last for 90 minutes and will begin from Barnlusgan Information Centre, where free parking is available.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can\u2019t make the weekend activities, you don\u2019t necessarily need to miss out. The Scottish Beaver Trial team will be running one event every month in Argyll to give visitors a chance to tour the beaver trial site in the company of a beaver expert.” For more information, visit the Beaver Trial website<\/a>.<\/p>\n “A visit to Knapdale is a great family day out. Signs of beaver activity, including felled and regenerating trees, a beaver dam and pond, can all be seen by taking a walk along the Beaver Detective Trail to the Dubh Loch. To give yourself the best chance to spot beavers, it\u2019s best to visit the site at dusk or dawn.\u201d <\/p>\n To book your place on a Knapdale beaver site tour contact Polly Phillpot at pphillpot@rzss.org.uk or phone 0131 314 0335. Tours take place on Saturday 19 March from 2 pm to 3.30 pm and 7 pm to 8.30 pm, and on Sunday 20 March from 7 am to 8.30 am. If you are unable to make the organised tours you can do a self-guided walk at the Beaver Trial site by downloading the free walk here on the Walkhighlands website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A celebration of beavers in spring-time will take place in Scotland this weekend (19 – 20 March), as part of the first multinational beaver festival ever to be held across Europe. The Scottish Beaver Trial, the project undertaking the first trial reintroduction of beavers to Scotland, plans to run free events at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum and in Knapdale Forest, the trial area in mid-Argyll which is currently the home of 12 beavers, including two breeding families which are bringing up young kits born last spring. Rallied by Frenchman, Samuel Dubie, a beaver conservationist, organisers in other European countries, including France,…<\/span> <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3658,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conservation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3655"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22808,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3655\/revisions\/22808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}