The Government should halt plans to capture wild beavers in Devon, environmentalists have urged, warning that the move may be illegal.

Ministers have said they intend to capture and re-home in captivity the beavers living on the River Otter in Devon, which have successfully produced young, known as kits, this year.

But, in a letter to Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss, Friends of the Earth has claimed the plans may not be legal.

Old stories brought back to life

Human interest stories from newspapers going back 285 years have been put together in a new book.

Journalist and author Rona Levin trawled through the British Library Newspaper Archive to find the items across two centuries, from 1729-1930.

The book shows that readers of yesteryear had as much interest in the grisly and macabre as today – more so, because many of the details would be considered too graphic for today’s newspapers.

Mammoth skeleton is up for sale

The skeleton of an Ice Age woolly mammoth is up for sale – but could fetch up to £250,000 when it goes under the hammer.

The rare find is residing at Summers Place Auctions in Billinghurst, West Sussex, after a private collector from Eastern Europe asked the firm to sell it on his behalf.

The almost-complete skeleton, which is believed to be made up of more than 150 bones, includes the tusks, making it extremely rare, a Summers Place spokeswoman said.

Lucky gambler saved from prison

A gambler in Germany has been saved from prison – by a one-armed bandit.

Two officers carrying out routine checks at an arcade in the western city of Bochum late last week discovered that a man playing a slot machine faced an arrest warrant.

The 37-year-old had been ordered to pay a €710 fine or go to prison for 71 days after resisting police during a previous incident. But as officers approached, the slot machine paid out a €1,000 jackpot – allowing the man to pay his fine on the spot.

‘Gimp’ man wants to raise public debate

A rubber fetishist who raises money for charity by going out in public in a bondage suit said he hoped his efforts would start a debate on stereotypes.

The Gimp Man of Essex gives £1 to Colchester Mind every time someone posts a photo with him to his Facebook page, which has more than 2,000 likes.

He said most people he meets on the streets are friendly, but others make assumptions that he is “a paedophile or a pervert”. So far he has raised £375.

Amorous donkeys reunited

Two amorous donkeys who were separated because of an outcry over their lovemaking have been reunited at a zoo in Poland.

Napoleon and Antosia, who have been together for 10 years, got into trouble when mothers expressed outrage that children had to witness their mating.

Local conservative official Lydia Dudziak took up their cause and persuaded the director of the Poznan zoo to have the animals put in separate pens.

That prompted nearly 7,000 people to sign a petition to have them reunited, and the couple are now in one single pen.