‘No one knows where it came from’: first wild beaver spotted in Norfolk for 400 years

> A wild beaver has been spotted in Norfolk for the first time since beavers were hunted to extinction in England at the beginning of the 16th century.

> It is the first time a free-living beaver has been recorded in the county since the species began to re-establish itself in the English countryside in 2015, when a litter of wild kits was born in Devon.

> “This animal just appeared in our reserve. No one knows where it’s come from, but it’s found what I consider a perfect beaver habitat,” said the reserve’s manager, Richard Spowage. He estimates the beaver has been living in an isolated and almost impenetrable area of the reserve for about a month.

> It is not clear whether the Pensthorpe beaver, whose sex and age is unknown, was illegally released into the reserve by activists using a practice known as beaver bombing. It is possible it wandered of its own accord into the Wensun – an aquifer-fed chalk river whose name is derived from the Old English adjective for “wandering”.

> Spowage doubts whether a wild beaver could have reached Norfolk by itself. “It’s unlikely it’s been born wild, or if it was wild, potentially there was some sort of human influence to move it,” he said, adding that the beaver would be welcome to live at Pensthorpe. “From our point of view, it’s a wild animal and it’s got the right to be here.”

Now it needs a mate.

It sounds like they know exactly where it’s come from, and illegal release.