BEAVERS have returned to the area for the first time in more than 400 years.

On Monday, February 8, two beavers were released into an enclosed site in west Dorset.

The ground-breaking project was led by Dorset Wildlife Trust and is the first of its kind in the county.

The pair of Eurasian beavers, an adult male and female, were relocated from Scotland to Dorset under license from NatureScot and are now settling in.

Their new home, a large site of freshwater habitat, is not accessible to the general public. Dorset Wildlife Trust has also chosen not reveal the specific location as to not encourage any attempts to visit the beavers.

However, monitoring of the enclosure will provide rare, close-up video and photo footage of the charismatic creatures as they explore their new home and begin to influence the landscape.

Dorset Wildlife Trust Rivers Conservation Officer, Steve Oliver, said: "It’s fantastic to be welcoming beavers back to Dorset. Beavers are magnificent creatures in their own right, but they are extra special because their engineering activities have the potential to bring even more life to a landscape and enable other species to flourish.

“We are extremely excited to host this project, working alongside our lead partners University of Exeter and Wessex Water to study all the impacts beavers bring to a local Dorset site, adding to the growing scientific evidence gathered from other reintroduction projects around the country."

This project has been several years in the making and has included the installation of a specialist fence to enclose the site and record baseline data with experts from University of Exeter and Wessex Water, both of which have worked on the project alongside Dorset Wildlife Trust.

The beavers have been introduced as part of a scientific study and a key focus of the project is monitoring and recording the impact the beavers have on water quality, flooding and other wildlife. Beavers are known as ‘nature’s engineers’ and their activities, including wetland creation through the building of dams, have the potential to increase biodiversity, filter and clean water, and even reduce flooding by slowing the rate of water passing through rivers and streams during storm events.

To find out more about the project and the plan for its future, visit https://www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/BeaverProject.