A BEAVER’S run of freedom at a Perthshire fishery has come to an end.

The beaver is believed to be one of a pair which slipped into the tranquil waters of Sandyknowes Fishery at Bridge of Earn in the late autumn, as The Courier revealed earlier this year.

It is now at the Highland Wildlife Centre at Kincraig, part of Edinburgh Zoo, where there is a colony of European beavers brought in from Norway.

Edwin Blake, a conservation officer with Edinburgh Zoo will bait live traps around the loch for the next few nights to find if there are any others.

The beaver was trapped on Monday, having been enticed into a cage by apples and sweet tasting vegetables.

“The traps were specially made to my design for beavers,” said Edwin, who said that it was the first he had caught, although he has had experience of trapping other animals.

The metal cages are over three feet long, to allow for the animal and its paddle-shaped tail, and were designed so that when sprung the beaver was prodded further into the trap so its tail was clear of the descending door.

The trap is made of metal mesh but the flooring has to be thickly covered with vegetation if there is to be any hope of catching a beaver.

“They have very sensitive feet and would not enter a trap if they could feel the metal mesh,” Edwin added.

It’s not known how many beavers there are in Sandyknowes, for—as they are mainly nocturnal—only former fisheries manager Eoin Christie had seen one, swimming towards its island lodge towing a willow branch early one morning.

But the evidence of their presence was clearly visible in the number of tree stumps around the shore of the man made loch.

In some cases the stumps were up to 10 inches in diameter. The trees had been felled to allow the beaver to strip the branches and swim with them to the island where they have built their lodge. There they were embedded in the mud to provide a winter larder.

Edwin has now painted a number of the stumps with a vegetable dye to see if any further damage is inflicted on them, the only way of being sure whether there is another present or not.

He will also stake out turnips near sites the beaver use, and if large holes appear in them that would be another indication of the presence of another beaver. But in the meantime several traps will be set each night just in case.

“A number of dog walkers visit the loch, but there is no danger for their animals, as the traps are only in operation during hours of darkness, and are closed before sunrise,” he said.

Although he caught the beaver, Edwin admits he did not know whether it was a European beaver or its North American cousin—or even what sex it is.

An Edinburgh Zoo press officer said yesterday that she understood the beaver caught at Sandyknowes was a member of the European species.

Last year the Scottish Executive turned down proposals, backed by the Scottish Wildlife Trust among others, to re-introduce European beavers to Scotland.