From photocopying secret files to taking on the powerful lobby groups, activist Derek Gow’s book Bringing Back the Beaver tells his side of the story of Britain’s beaver reintroduction

By Graham Lawton

LAST month, the UK government made a long-anticipated ruling on the future of a colony of beavers that has been living freely on the River Otter in Devon since at least 2014. Against expectations, it decided they could stay – the first time an extinct native mammal has been legally reintroduced into the wild in England. Scotland’s government made a similar call in 2016, and in 2019 …