One student’s mission to learn more about Ashford’s secretive beavers

28th May 2026

In this blog, hear from Monitoring & Evidence Research Intern, Ollie, about his work tracking beavers in Kent. Believe it or not, these elusive creatures have made it to Ashford!

My name is Ollie and I’m doing a placement year at Kent Wildlife Trust. This is where in between my second and third year of university I get to spend a year out doing research. I chose Kent Wildlife Trust because they do an amazing job and benefit people and nature across Kent.

Following the signs of beavers along the River Stour

A project that I have been working on this year is beavers! I live near Conningbrook Lakes in Ashford, and I have heard of people spotting beavers along the River Stour and on the lake. So, I made it my mission to try and spot these elusive animals and find out how many families there were and how far up the River Stour they go.

I signed up to a beaver ecology course run by Kent Wildlife Trust and Ben Morris, which taught me how to identify beaver field signs such as chewed wood, scent mounds, scat, and lodges. This gave me the perfect skills to then go out to Conningbrook and see if I could find any signs. And with just a short amount of walking I found loads. Sticks chewed, bark gnawed, wood chippings all over the floor, beaver scent mounds; I was ecstatic!

Capturing the first footage

My next move was then to find a good place to put a trail camera that I had just bought. I put it down next to some really good beaver signs and then all I had to do was wait.

After two weeks of waiting, I finally got a 10 second video of a back of a beaver in the dark! This was amazing! I had footage of a beaver, even if it was only its back.

What the cameras revealed about beaver activity in Ashford

I decided to move the camera to a better, more secluded location and this time beavers were appearing every night, I managed to get them eating, swimming, scent marking, scratching and even farting! Later I found out that they fart to squeeze out castoreum which is used for marking their territory. This confirmed that there was more than one beaver family along the River Stour at Ashford which we didn’t know of before!

A surprising discovery

On one of the clips, I noticed a slight bulge under its tail and what looked like teats, so I spoke to my friend Tom, who is researching beavers at the University of Kent, and he confirmed my original suspicion. The beaver was pregnant! This is amazing news as this shows that this beaver family is growing and in the next few years beavers will expand along the River Stour.

The search continues

My next mission is to find the beaver’s lodge and put up a camera to monitor the kits when they leave it. Sadly, I haven’t had any luck so far in finding it.

I have now been monitoring these beavers for the past 2 months and it is part of my routine to check the cameras to see how they are doing!