A REWILDING charity is to take Holyrood’s nature agency to court over the licensed killing of wild beavers.

Moray-based Trees for Life is working to restore plant and animal species across the Highlands.

And it says national body NatureScot is “failing in its duty” and breaking the law by allowing the killing of wild beavers on control licenses.

Almost 90 of the reintroduced mammals were culled last year, despite being a protected species. The figure is equivalent to a fifth of the overall population.

NatureScot says those licences were only allowed in instances where the animals were causing danger or damage to public health or farmland.

Trees for Life now aims to challenge this in court and has launched a £40,000 fundraiser to cover the costs of a judicial review.

Its chief executive Steve Micklewright said: “This is a matter of law, not of opinion. There’s a strong legal case that NatureScot is breaking the law by failing to make killing of beavers a last resort when they have unwanted impacts on agricultural land.

“It’s clear from our correspondence with NatureScot that it is unwilling to change approach and properly consider moving beavers as an alternative to killing. So we’re having to launch a judicial review to secure the future of Scotland’s habitat-creating, biodiversity-boosting, flood-preventing beavers, and prevent more needless loss of life.”

Once hunted to extinction, the reintroduction of wild beavers in Scotland became official with a Knapdale release by Environment Minister Roseanna Cunningham in 2009.

The dams created by the species boost wetlands, but can be detrimental to farmland, as has happened in Tayside where killings under legal control licences took place.

NatureScot has pinpointed more than 100,000 hectares of habitat suitable for beavers, but the Scottish Government says they cannot be relocated to new areas.

Laws covering protected species require interventions to have the smallest possible conservation impact.

Trees for Life says policy over beavers is “making a mockery” of their protected status and wants to ensure lethal control is a “genuine last resort”, with relocation a preferred option.

Alan McDonnell, conservation manager, said: “By respecting the law and allowing relocation of beavers to suitable areas of Scotland, the Government could achieve a big nature-friendly, climate-friendly, farmer-friendly win.”

Defending current practice, Robbie Kernahan of NatureScot commented: “We have been working for 25 years to bring back beavers to Scotland because of the benefits they provide to people and nature by improving water quality and flow and creating new habitats that support many other species, so this latest development is quite frustrating.

“In certain circumstances, beavers can cause problems.

“In those specific situations where beavers pose a risk of serious damage to farmland or where they occasionally cause a public health and safety concern, we issue licences accordingly.

“We are confident that our approach to managing these impacts is robust and lawful and licences are only used if we are satisfied that there is no other solution.”