It has taken a while to arrive, but late last month the first beaver to be born in the wild in Britain in roughly 400 years emerged from its lodge.
The young animal, known as a kit, is one of at least two that have been born to wild beavers released in May last year around several lochs deep in an ancient, uninhabited forest on the Kintyre peninsula in Scotland.
The small, shy animals are now about eight weeks old and their arrival is a profound relief to the Scottish conservationists who have pioneered the reintroduction of beavers into the UK, centuries after they were hunted for their pelts and oil into extinction.
The first kit was spotted by Christian Robstad, a field officer with the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. "It emerged as part of a 'family outing' with its parents and older sister close by to offer additional protection," he said. "It kept close to the edge of the loch and called out to its family for reassurance while it began to learn to forage for food."
The experiment at Knapdale, south-west of Lochgilphead, is being closely watched by naturalists in southern England and Wales, where beaver reintroduction projects are being pursued.
The Scottish scheme has had a troubled history. Six of the wild beavers flown in from Norway in 2008 died in quarantine or could not be released. After back-up beavers were moved from a wildlife reserve in the Highlands, 11 were eventually freed in Knapdale. Since then one family of three has gone missing, with fears that the female was deliberately shot. A fourth new pair was released in May to bolster numbers.
Simon Jones, the Scottish Wildlife Trust's project manager, said: "Receiving confirmation of the presence of at least two beaver kits this year in Knapdale is a fantastic step forward, as we can now begin to see how a small reintroduced population starts to naturally establish itself in the wild.
"Both families have built their own lodge and one family has had great success building a dam to access better food supplies. This has created a magnificent new area of wetland in which wildlife is now flourishing."