Too Eager Beaver
‘IT sure is hot. Its even hot enough for beavers. Look, theres one in the Mail. Hes a fantastic swimmer, says the paper. Hes got razor-sharp front teeth.
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‘Can anybody else hear someone chewing?’ |
And just look at those valves in his nostrils which allow him to keep cool under water for fifteen minutes.
But whats the critter doing here? As the Mirror says, the native British species was hunted to extinction 500 years ago. Has the warm weather brought one back to life?
No. This beaver is one of six of the furry rodents (77,400 hairs per square inch Mail) that Jeremy Paxton has released on his 500-acre estate in Gloucestershire.
Mr Paxton wants the animals to be reintroduced to Britain. Something the Suns topless Dannii is also keen on. I love animals, says she. This is great news, just as nature intended.
Its all well and good for Dannii to go native, but Paxtons no Mother Nature. And the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs is investigating whether or not Paxton has a licence to release the animals into the wild.
A spokesman for Defra says in the Mirror: The Eurasian beaver is not a species ordinarily resident in Great Britain. Mr Paxton will therefore be committing an offence if he releases any beaver from captivity.
But Paxton wants to do for the beaver what others have tried to do for the red kite, the white-tailed eagle, the great bustard and the pool frog.
The main reason Im doing this is that I want to repopulate the UK with beaver, says he. Well, why not humans havent been all that great for the country, so lets give a different species a turn…’
Posted: 28th, October 2005 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink