THE story of how a couple in Perthshire reintroduced beavers into Scotland's wilderness for the first time in 400 years, in a landmark moment in the species conservation, has been celebrated in a new children’s book.
My Dad Brought Beavers Back tells the story of how author Adam’s parents, Paul and Louise Ramsay, reintroduced beavers to the Bamff estate in the early 2000s, marking a pivotal moment in the wider reintroduction of the animal across the UK.
The rhyming tale is based on the author’s personal story, as told to his children, and aims to explain the role that beavers play in restoring wetlands and encouraging biodiversity.
Adam told The National the idea to write the picture book, aimed at three to six-year-olds and illustrated by Abigail Little, came to him after he told the tale to his own small children about the role that his dad — their grandad — played in reintroducing beavers to Scotland.
His father, a revered ecologist, was a sheep farmer and was looking for ways to improve biodiversity in Perthshire long before rewilding was a thing, Adam explained.
He said: “When I was a kid, before I went to school, I was up the hill herding sheep with him.
“Being there, he was always kind of worried about the environmental impact of modern industrial farming and interested in birch forests regenerating there.
“Then he kind of realised in the late 90s that beavers were native to Scotland but were made extinct and there were attempts to bring them back and he was like, well maybe we could do that.”
Adam explained his father, along with some ecologist friends in 2002, got a family of beavers and made a big enclosure so they could live in.
The author and National contributor said he believes it was the first time beavers were living in a semi-wild setting in Scotland for the first time in 400 years.
“Watching that transformation happen, they build dams, they coppice trees, so you get these incredible thickets, wildlife around them, kind of blossoms, that's what were these agricultural dishes we used to play in,” Adam said.
“As kids, we used to always build dams, little dams across these ditches, and then the beavers came along and the biggest dam they created at home was about 100 meters long and up to six feet high, and they created these enormous wetlands.
“The result is that now you can see there's incredible wildlife.
“You see the trout rising in them at night, birds flying around to bats to catch the insects, all kinds of ecological transformation of what was a sort of fairly dead agricultural and not very productive agricultural environment into this very rich wetland.”
Adam said he used to tell his oldest daughter the story of his dad’s conservation efforts as she would fondly ask about beavers.
The father of three said it wasn’t until he was walking around in Portobello with his youngest daughter “strapped” to him that he decided to write the story down and then turned it into a rhyming version.
Two years afterwards, Scotland Street Press agreed to publish the book, which will release on August 25 and is available for pre-order.
Adam said he has “always written silly poems” so translating his father’s story into a rhyming children’s book came naturally to him as he put it down to a fun “family trait” which he inherited from his mum.
The story explains how beavers used to live in Scotland, with the ponds they made creating habitats for other wildlife.
But as people wiped out the beavers, as they were hunted for their fur pelts, the ponds disappeared, and so did the other wildlife.
Then, after Adam’s father’s reintroduction of beavers, spurring conservation efforts across the country, the wildlife returned as beaver numbers flourished.
“I hope people can enjoy the story,” Adam said.
“For me the important thing is trying to explain that kind of story about biodiversity as we hear a lot about nature loss, which is terrifying, and we can cite stats forever about how many fewer hedgehogs in the UK there are now than when we were kids and so on, but it's nice to have a positive story to tell.
“In a way, introducing children to these ideas without always telling negative stories about everything being terrible is quite nice.”
The illustrations for the book were inspired after Little went to Adam’s father’s estate to witness the beavers and the wetlands first hand, which the author said has truly captured the animals' charm.
Adam added: “I’ve loved telling my children that [my father’s] story, and I’m looking forward to telling it to many more.”
Jean Fraser of Scotland Street Press said, “I know Adam from his journalism, but reading his children’s book just reminded me of the fast, witty rhyming schemes of Doctor Seuss, and beavers are a comic animal.
“We’ve been fortunate to find a very talented emerging illustrator, and this will be her first published book.”
Adam will be making an appearance at the Portobello Bookshop, Edinburgh, on August 2 for the book’s launch. Tickets are available here.
You can also pre-order My Dad Brought Beavers Back on the Scotland Street Press website.
