Beavers were welcomed back to the Netherlands. Until they started digging 17m-long tunnels | Renate van der Zee

Reintroduced for environmental reasons, beavers are now in danger of causing serious flooding. Should there be more culls?

The beaver has made an amazing comeback in the Netherlands. Extinct in the early 19th century, it was reintroduced in 1988, and now there are an estimated 7,000 beavers roaming around. Compared with England, where the beaver population is estimated at 500, that’s quite a feat.

But there’s a significant downside to the booming Dutch beaver population. Beavers are increasingly digging burrows and tunnels under roads, railways and – even more worrying – in dykes. For a country where a quarter of the land sits below sea level, this is not a minor problem – especially as beavers are not exactly holding back when digging.

Renate van der Zee is a Dutch writer and journalist