The MP for East Devon has stepped into the debate over whether a colony of beavers should be allowed to continue living on the River Otter.
Hugo Swire has written to DEFRA, which fears the beavers could be diseased and wants to put them into captivity.
Local residents want them to be tested for disease but then allowed back into the wild.
Mr Swire is due to meet the the Parliamentary Under-secretary of State for Natural Environment and Science, Lord de Mauley, next week to discuss the issue.
Two online petitions calling for the beavers to stay where they are have collected a total of more than six thousand four hundred signatures.
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