Rampaging beavers

Beaver 'blight' is a warning to UK | Environment | The Observer

Last week, I noted that The Independent was full of praise for the beaver. This week, The Guardian (see above) has a cautionary tale of beavers causing havoc in South America:

'I have seen the impact of all sorts of animals introduced to new habitats, but I have never seen anything like the damage inflicted by these beavers,' said Josh Donlan, of the ACS. 'They move along rivers and lay waste to their banks. It looks as if bulldozers have been let loose. Millions of acres have been wrecked.'

Fifty North American beavers, Castor canadensis, were introduced to Tierra del Fuego, in southern South America, in the 1940s in order to establish a fur trade. It was a catastrophic mistake. Numbers multiplied dramatically and beavers spread across the archipelago, crossed the Magellan Strait and are now spreading through the mainland.

Damn. My plans for introducing them to Australia may have its opponents.