New online tour gives public ‘virtual’ access to beavers for the first time

New online tour gives public ‘virtual’ access to beavers for the first time. Image: Wild Media / Shutterstock.com.

The National Trust has launched a virtual tour of its beaver closure on the Holnicote estate on Exmoor in Somerset, three years after the beavers were first introduced.

A first for the UK, the new tour can be accessed on the charity’s website and uses cutting-edge technology to provide users with virtual access to the 2.7-acre enclosure where beavers were first released by the Trust in January 2020.

The footage was captured using professional, high-resolution 360° video equipment, for the first tour of its kind in the UK. The immersive experience features trail camera footage of the beavers’ everyday lives, drone footage of the enclosure and wider estate with links to other National Trust projects and a ‘question and answer’ session with the charity’s beaver expert, Ben Eardley.

Other wildlife captured on the 360° video and trail cameras include kingfishers, stoats, roe deer and bullfinch. The tour will add additional footage as the site develops capturing this dynamic changing waterscape and its wildlife as it moves through the seasons.

Ben Eardley Project Manager for the National Trust at Holnicote says: “Beavers are such fascinating mammals that we wanted to find a way of sharing their antics and to enable people to find out more about these shy species.”

“Web users are just one click away from being able to explore beaver-constructed dams, ponds, canals and wetlands and see and hear some of the wildlife the habitat supports.”

“Although we would always want to encourage people to get outside to enjoy nature and to see it for themselves, beavers are elusive creatures and typically most active at dawn and dusk. We, therefore, hope this footage will appeal to active and armchair nature lovers alike and will enable more people to see the beavers in their natural environment and how their dams, ponds and channels have created space for water and wildlife.”


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Anna Ellis

Originally from Derbyshire, Anna has lived in the middle of nowhere on the Costa Blanca for 19 years. She is passionate about her animal family including four dogs and four horses, musicals and cooking.

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