Beaver rescued after wandering the streets of Kraków

Residents of Kraków were this morning greeted by an unusual sight when a beaver was found wandering the city’s streets. The incident follows reports that the number of beavers – a species once close to extinction in Poland – is growing rapidly in the region around Kraków.

The runaway rodent was spotted at 6 a.m. on Krakowska street in Kraków’s former Jewish district of Kazimierz, not far from the Vistula river. After municipal police were informed, they sent out an animal rescue team who captured the beaver and released it in a safe location.

In a Facebook post, the city police accompanied photos of the animal with a poem dedicated to “Mr Beaver”, asking “why are you walking around Kraków” and “wasn’t it better in the woods?”

Today’s incident comes just days after local radio station Radio Kraków reported that beaver numbers are booming, both across Poland as a whole and in the Małopolska province around Kraków.

Hunting of the animals had led to only an estimated 235 beavers being left in Poland by 1928. However, postwar reintroduction programmes and more recent legal protections have seen their numbers boom – to almost 140,000 by 2020, according to the state water agency, PGW WP.

Beavers play an important role in tackling drought by retaining water through the dams they build, which also create “oases of biodiversity” notes PGW WP. However, they can also cause damage to roads, houses and other human constructions, leading some to call for culls to keep their numbers down.

Main image credit: Straż Miejska Miasto Krakowa/Facebook

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.