{"id":748691,"date":"2026-08-25T00:08:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T00:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/748691\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T00:08:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T00:08:20","slug":"first-wild-beavers-born-in-norfolk-for-more-than-500-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/748691\/","title":{"rendered":"First wild beavers born in Norfolk for more than 500 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Owing to beavers being nocturnal, sightings were extremely rare. <\/p>\n

Spowage said the beavers would not be a visitor attraction “or a social media moment”. <\/p>\n

“They are an important native species which deserve a stable, properly considered and scientifically led future,” he added.<\/p>\n

“We’ve deliberately been relatively quiet while a huge amount of work has been taking place behind the scenes.”<\/p>\n

The adults and their two kits now occupy a remote and inaccessible area of the reserve.<\/p>\n

According to Pensthorpe, the gradual return of the beaver to the country has been through licensed reintroductions<\/a>, alongside the appearance of free-living animals in parts of England.<\/p>\n

The nearest reintroduced beavers in Norfolk are at Sculthorpe Moor further up stream the River Wensum in Sculthorpe. <\/p>\n

Pensthorpe has not reintroduced any beavers to its site.<\/p>\n

Spowage said: “There’s something incredibly special about knowing that, somewhere in a quiet corner of this landscape, two beaver kits are now growing up wild in Norfolk.<\/p>\n

“Less than a year ago, we didn’t know we had a beaver here at all. Now we have a family.<\/p>\n

“Moments like this are exactly why long-term habitat restoration and conservation matter.”<\/p>\n

It is thought some 500 beavers already live in England, some in the wild and others in enclosures. <\/p>\n

Do you have a story suggestion for Norfolk? Contact us below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Owing to beavers being nocturnal, sightings were extremely rare. Spowage said the beavers would not be a visitor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-748691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}