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For those who have never seen a beaver – if not in a cartoon or in a commercial – it is useful to know that: it is as big as a dog of medium size, is the largest rodent in Europeis considered a ecosystem engineer because it can significantly change the environment in which it lives. And especially, after about 500 years it has returned to populate the banks of the Tiber: for the moment, around Arezzo.
This was testified by some technicians of the 2 Alto Valdarno reclamation consortium, engaged in the activity of monitoring watercourses, and confirmed by the experts of theAnbi. The massive return of wild species, such as wild boars, or the appearance of long absent species, such as beavers, are signs of a changing nature: and not always in a negative way.
The beaver is sandwiched between the protected species indicated by EU Habitats Directive. For this reason, the return to central Italy of the largest rodent in Europe marks both a advancement of the ability to protect fauna and flora, and the slow abandonment of a predatory culture towards plants and animals. “It had disappeared for centuries due to overexploitation for the furthe meat and theoil produced by its perianal glands, the castoreum, which the animal mixes with urine and uses to make the fur water-repellent and to mark the territory: in reality we do not know much about the historical distribution of the beaver in central and southern Italy, nor of the causes that led the species to extinction. We assume that the main ones are those just mentioned, the same ones that have caused its decline and extinction in other areas of Europe”, says Andrea Monaco, zoologist of Ispra (the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research).
It always allows hunting for “road safety reasons” and has passed the scrutiny of the House Budget Committee. A risk to environmental protection
The return of the beaver
Clumsy on land but very agile in water, vegetarian but with continuously growing incisors that take the form of very sharp chisels. Definitely, in the collective imagination, nice and hardworking. And in the Italian one, now absent and long since disappeared from our woods. At least until today: the beavers are back, and not just around Arezzo.
Together with the experts of Atit (the association that brings together mammal scholars in Italy), Monaco has tried to understand what are the specific reasons for the repopulation of beavers: the reference is to the species Castor fiberpresent in Europe for 3 million years and widespread in Italy until the dawn of the seventeenth century. “We have evaluated all the possibilities: the permanence of relict cores, natural colonization from the north, escape from structures such as zoos and wildlife areas, and human introduction. There presence of relict nuclei was rejected immediately given the easy detectability of the species when present; similarly the was discarded natural diffusion, given that the closest natural populations are about 400 kilometers away and the complete absence of reports in the intermediate area. Since there are no subjects held in structures from which they could have escaped and given life to beaver nuclei in the wild, only one cause remains: the release by man, an event that has already occurred in the past in other areas of Europe, including Spain. A release altogether illegalnot authorized by any public authority and conducted ignoring the international technical procedures developed by the scientific community in decades of practice of the reintroduction of extinct species”.
Environmental effects
To use an expression dear to the environmental language of sustainability, the beaver is truly a agent of change. In particular for “its ability to generate profound transformations on the landscape and on the ecosystem, mainly due to the effects resulting from the activities of dam construction and atfood activity, mainly carried out on woody plants, in particular willows and poplars, which it cuts down by gnawing at the base”, specifies Munich. This mammal can cause both positive and negative environmental effects. “Among the positive ones – says the zoologist – I would definitely remember the stabilization of water flows and the creation of new wetlandswhich increase the diversity of habitats and can increase animal and plant biodiversity”. While for the negative ones, the Ispra zoologist reports theweakening of the water network due to excavation activities, with an increased risk of flooding, and theimpact on vegetation along river banks.
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