Latest news with #beavers
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Telegraph
You'll find no better company on earth than 40 northerners on a coach holiday
This is how things unfolded that sweltering Saturday afternoon on the River Loire. Our coach group of around 40 had been divided between three flat-bottomed toues, the traditional wooden Loire working boats. We were drifting, our bronzed boatmen letting the current do the work as they explained this and that about France's longest, wildest river. Beavers featured prominently. One boatman thought he'd spotted a few on the bank. He guided his boat in, leapt for land and started digging around with a short stick, seeking beavers. Intent, he didn't notice his boat escape, drifting away towards the middle of the river. Then he did. Panic attack. He plunged after it. There were a dozen or so rudderless senior Britons floating off, conceivably quite far. The plunging, though, merely pushed the boat further away. The boatman was neck deep before he caught up, and couldn't haul himself aboard. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Tony, a retired local government worker from Ingleton, managed to haul a saturated Frenchman to safety. It was a stirring display. Manly handshakes were exchanged, the entente cordiale sealed once again. Such drama is not the usual diet of coach trips but, believe me, these tours are absolutely not as perceived by those who have never taken one. I know. I've been there. Once a year, I stop being a reporter to organise, and guide, a French holiday for a Yorkshire Dales coach company owned by a friend of mine. I have a ball. This year, 2025, in the hottest early summer since the Big Bang, we rolled into the Loire Valley, rolled into a hotel in Amboise and rolled out every day around what is the 'Frenchiest' region of France. Here the language is the purest, the light the softest, the landscape the most amply fertile and the history the most elegant. The world's greatest collection of Renaissance châteaux constitutes the stateliest statement of French aspirations. And the Loire itself provides the running commentary. But – as I said over the coach PA, maybe a little too often – Chambord castle and the rest aren't just majestic monuments. They were the setting for heavyweight history: power plays, torture, intrigue, debauchery, murder, skulduggery, cross-dressing, adultery and epic horticulture – all more or less vital to keep France governed and French monarchs on top. That's the fascination. Here we had, then, the best of France being visited by the best of Britain. Granted, our cast of northern English people were not in the first bloom of youth, more of an age when independent travel had become too much of a palaver. With a coach tour, you take your bags to the hold, ensure you're punctual and polite – which comes naturally to Britons of this ilk – and that's your responsibilities done. And, once met, they proved a diverse bunch. Where else might one share conversation, drinks and meals with a surgeon, several farmers, businessmen and women, teachers, the boss of an electrical company, a champion crown green bowler, a graphic artist and civil servants, among many others – who, incidentally, had more to tell me than I ever had to tell them? As built-in company goes, there's none better. I'd look round the bar at apéritif time, see couples travelling independently who surely didn't consider themselves 'coach group people'. They were as glum as hell. Meanwhile, batches of our bunch were discussing the day, Starmer, French food, Joan of Arc, rugby league, kids, grandkids, the NHS and former holidays in France over beer, wine, gin and tonic, and Baileys with ice. I don't ask for much more. So we roamed the great château of Chambord where, with vast magnificence, Renaissance king François I established that French kings were second only to God, and a pretty close second, at that. The Black Eyed Peas had played a summer show in the grounds a few days earlier. The Loire châteaux are going all out to kick on into the 21st century. That said, the grandeur still expresses the absolute power of the 16th and 17th. We took in Chenonceau – arching over the river, a couple of unicorns short of fairy-tale perfection – and Clos Lucé in Amboise, where Leonardo de Vinci spent his final years. The manor house and grounds now host evocations of the works – engineering, art, architecture – of a man better than everyone at everything. As Leonardo's host, François I, said: 'It is inconceivable that life might produce anyone similar.' He'd foreseen, among much else, the parachute, helicopter, machine gun, military tank and car-jack. 'I'd no idea,' said a cultivated lady from Lancashire. 'I thought he was just the Mona Lisa.' And that was enough châteaux. Loire valley visitors need to know that 'châteaux fatigue' is a real threat. Divert to the gardens. Villandry is among the most extreme in France, the French correcting God's design for nature with fanatical geometrical precision. It's a dazzling exercise in horticultural control – but also a challenge to get round as the temperatures rose to around 35C. Most seductive of all the gardens were those at Plessis-Sasnières in the Loir (no 'e') valley, slightly to the north of the grander Loire. Echoing English gardens – their creator was a fan – these caressed the senses with colour, calm and aromas. A waterhen and her chicks scooted across water lilies. And there was tranquillity, too, around beer, tea and assorted drinks on the shady tea-room terrace. We'd travelled along the Loir from Thoré-la-Rochette on a 1950s train retained for tourists and run by volunteers of some exuberance. We'd lunched at Montoire, directly opposite the little station where, on October 24, 1940, Hitler and Pétain shook hands on their collaboration deal. The station is now a little museum but not open very often, which may be just as well. As one of the (above) volunteers said: 'It's the only reason anyone's ever heard of the place, but Montoire locals would prefer they hadn't'. A surprising amount of life in both the Loire and Loir valleys takes place underground, in caves and troglo-dwellings either featuring in, or dug out of, the limestone rock. Near Montoire, we'd scheduled a visit to Trôo – a vertical village punched into a cliff face on several levels. We soon abandoned that. The perpendicular ascent, or descent, and rickety steps would have seen off half the group. That said, we got a decent taste of troglodyte matters, first at Bourré where some of the miles of former underground workings were now devoted to growing exotic mushrooms. A fine guide made the subject roughly 37 times more interesting than anticipated. Meanwhile, round a few underground corners, a stone-mason and a sculptor had created a haut-relief model main street about a third life-size – and teeming with reminders, for future generations, of what mid-20th-century village life resembled. Later, lunch in a nicely-lit troglo-restaurant went pretty well, too, not least due to a local starter of warm fouées. As you'll probably know, these are something very like pitta bread, cut almost in two and filled with potted meat (rillettes) and salad. A Touraine red proved just the ticket. On other days, we toured Amboise by dinky tourist train – do not disdain them – and Blois by Percheron heavy horse and carriage. Getting aboard necessitated gymnastics from people who hadn't done much of this kind of thing in decades. A sense of triumph filled the air, and the gigantic horses clip-clopped off. So to boat, heroics – and home to the hotel. As I've learnt, an important part of any tour organiser's job is to ensure that the group is back at the hotel to change (smart shirts, posh frocks) for the correct amount of drinks before dinner. Not many. Mainly just one, but a vital one. It is also to know when to shut up. Join our writer in France next summer Anthony Peregrine's 2026 summer tour will be to the Moselle in northeast France, based in Metz. Details remain to be finalised but will be found at
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Beavers put to work saving two Utah rivers
National Parks are often referred to as 'America's best idea.' That's what followers of the National Parks and Forests Supporters believe, anyway (and they're probably not wrong). Earlier this month, the Facebook page highlighted another great idea, this one regarding a unique conservation effort. The unique conservation effort is… beavers. In 2019, researchers began moving captured beavers who had become a nuisance to humans along stretches of the San Rafael and Price Rivers in Eastern Utah. The idea is that beavers—often considered nature's engineers—reshape river landscapes by felling trees and building dams. All of this busy activity conserves water and creates wetlands that sustain countless other species. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, they are 'one of the most cost effective and sustainable solutions for ecological restoration and climate change resilience.' And our desert rivers are indeed in need of ecological restoration. Human activities including the constructions of reservoirs, dams, and diversions have depleted their crucial water supplies and consequently degraded natural habitats of the local flora and fauna, as reported by Utah State Magazine. Cue the beavers. Two years after they joined the small pre-existing population, Emma Doden, a then-Utah State University graduate student who participated in the conservation experiment, told the BBC that her team found dams in regions where they had previously never been observed. While a number of the 47 total translocated beavers died or moved away from the target restoration area, 'a few of these beavers stuck where we put them. And even the ones that didn't – we had some move 20km [12 miles] downstream, which is pretty far for a small little animal – they are probably still helping the system, as the river is so degraded,' she said. [ Related: Beavers, snails, and elephants are top grads from nature's college of engineering. ] By 2023, the experiment was still working. The researchers saw more dams than before their study on beaver translocation, behavioral ecologist Julie Young at Utah State University told The Wildlife Society. Some beavers improved regions of pre-existing analog dams—or human-made beaver-like dams built for environmental restoration purposes. 'What heavy machinery and government programs couldn't do, a few rodents pulling sticks through the mud did better,' the National Parks and Forests Supporters post concludes. While the post doesn't cite specific evidence backing their claim regarding government intervention, there's no arguing that beavers—like invasive-plant-eating goats—are a more natural solution. Solve the daily Crossword
The Verge
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
What if Avatar was about beavers?
Posted Jul 16, 2025 at 4:34 PM UTC What if Avatar was about beavers? That certainly seems like the premise of Pixar's next feature, Hoppers , where people can inhabit 3D-printed versions of animals and live amongst the real ones in the wild. It also has a bit of a Wild Robot vibe, which isn't a bad thing. Hoppers hits theaters on March 6th, 2026.
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Two baby beavers born as part of wildlife project
Two baby beavers have been born in Cornwall as part of a wildlife reintroduction project. The parent beavers, Twiggy and Byrti, were introduced to a purpose-built enclosure on the Lost Gardens of Heligan estate in 2023 and 2024 respectively. It was part of a national programme of reintroducing the species more than 400 years after their extinction in Britain, said The Lost Gardens of Heligan. Toby Davies, wildlife coordinator at the gardens, said: "They looked to be a couple months old, but that's quite common for them to hide them away for a couple of months, and then all of a sudden, they kind of spring up." He added: "It's just such amazing news, I keep saying to everyone, I'm like a proud dad." Mr Davies said in the wild baby beavers, or kits as they are called, would usually stay with the parents for a couple years before on. The Lost Gardens of Heligan said beavers were an important keystone species and their reintroduction was being monitored to gauge their impact on local biodiversity, flood mitigation and grazing livestock. More news stories for Cornwall Listen to the latest news for Cornwall It worked with The Welsh Beaver Project, Beaver Trust and Natural England on their reintroduction programme. As well as beavers, the gardens have reintroduced water voles and glow worms to the estate and bosses said they were working on reintroducing red squirrels in future. Mr Davies said the beavers kits were yet to be named but would be named soon. Follow BBC Cornwall on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@ Beavers key to easing impact of flood and drought Beaver activists claim they are 'doing God's work' Night vision camera captures beaver breaking wind The Lost Gardens of Heligan
BBC News
12-07-2025
- General
- BBC News
Two baby beavers born in Cornwall as part of wildlife project
Two baby beavers have been born in Cornwall as part of a wildlife reintroduction project. The parent beavers, Twiggy and Byrti, were introduced to a purpose-built enclosure on the Lost Gardens of Heligan estate in 2023 and 2024 respectively. It was part of a national programme of reintroducing the species more than 400 years after their extinction in Britain, said The Lost Gardens of Davies, wildlife coordinator at the gardens, said: "They looked to be a couple months old, but that's quite common for them to hide them away for a couple of months, and then all of a sudden, they kind of spring up." He added: "It's just such amazing news, I keep saying to everyone, I'm like a proud dad."Mr Davies said in the wild baby beavers, or kits as they are called, would usually stay with the parents for a couple years before Lost Gardens of Heligan said beavers were an important keystone species and their reintroduction was being monitored to gauge their impact on local biodiversity, flood mitigation and grazing livestock. It worked with The Welsh Beaver Project, Beaver Trust and Natural England on their reintroduction well as beavers, the gardens have reintroduced water voles and glow worms to the estate and bosses said they were working on reintroducing red squirrels in Davies said the beavers kits were yet to be named but would be named soon.
