Loch Tay

The confirmation by Dr. Nick Dickson, during a talk, he gave yesterday at the Scottish Freshwater Discussion Group's meeting at Stirling University, that posts found at the bottom of Loch Tay last August had been gnawed by beavers came as no great surprise. The discovery does, however, go a long way towards falsifying the contention of some that beavers were never found in Highland Scotland.

I think that some careful research on the crannogs in Loch Awe will demonstrate that beavers were active there just as they were in Loch Tay. Moreover, the evidence from Loch Tay makes it even more likely that the marks that Professor Bryony Coles noted on a photograph of wood taken from the crannog at the head of Loch Treig were made by beavers too. This crannog was occupied by the MacDonells of Keppoch ( into the seventeenth century) and was later flooded when the north end of Loch Treig was dammed to provide hydro-electiricty around 1936.

To go back to Loch Tay - the reconstruction of a crannog near Kenmore was carried out by a group, headed by Dr. Dickson. It is well worth a visit. Tom Huxley has been there six times, which is no mean recommendation. I should admit that I pinched the photograph of the crannog from the Loch Tay Crannog website (www.crannog.co.uk).