BEAVER APPEAL

BEAVERS ARE BACK IN LONDON

After a 400 year absence, we are thrilled to have returned beavers to urban Ealing where they can once again thrive alongside humans!

With the help of our partners the Ealing Wildlife Group, Friends of Horsenden Hill, and Ealing Council, London’s first truly urban beaver reintroduction project has successfully brought these charismatic animals back to the capital. We thank you for your support.

Help us reach our £50,000 target to ensure the long-term success of this pioneering urban reintroduction project and allow our family of beavers at Paradise Fields to thrive. Having already secured £39,000 from the Mayor of London, we are on our way to achieving this target, but we still need your help!

The funding will ensure that the site is well-maintained and safeguard the beavers’ welfare going forward. It will also mean we can employ key staff to manage the project and work with the local community. 

Through our ongoing community engagement programmes we have already recruited and trained an impressive and committed network of local ‘Beaver Believers’ (beaver guardians) who do everything from checking site safety and monitoring the beavers, to guiding members of the public around the site.

Donate today to help keep this vital community engagement programme running for the entire duration of the project, and to keep this marvellous urban wilderness accessible to local people. 

We view this project as creating a blueprint for beaver reintroductions to urban sites across the UK, allowing more people than ever to access nature.

WHY WE NEED BEAVERS

We believe beavers have an intrinsic right to exist in this world, for their own sake. A world with beavers is a richer world for people and wildlife too. We’re living through the twin crises of climate breakdown and massive biodiversity loss, and beaver reintroductions can help mitigate the impacts of both.

They are ecosystem engineers, meaning they have a profound impact on their surrounding environment. They do this by building dams and altering the landscape, not only creating new habitats for themselves, but for other animals as well.

Their damming behaviours not only store water but also store silt and sediment, which combined not only help alleviate the impacts of drought but also store carbon through sedimentation over time and can even reduce pollution.

THE PROJECT

The Ealing Beaver Project is London’s first truly urban reintroduction of beavers. With the support of the landowner, Ealing Council, and local rewilders at Ealing Wildlife Group and Friends of Horsenden Hill we successfully reintroduced a family of five beavers to Paradise Fields on Wednesday 11th October, 2023.

The project has so much potential in terms of community engagement, as well as providing benefits for local people through reducing flooding in the Greenford area.

We are raising money for a staff member to continue managing the site post-reintroduction, including organising logistics for site improvements and maintaining the beaver-secure fence.

This staff member will also deliver a range of community engagement activities to equip local people with the skills and knowledge for living alongside beavers once again, and ensure the long-term success of the project. 

Having a key member of staff who leads the project on the ground will be vital, not only to make the project run smoothly but also to help teach others about the potential for reintroducing more beavers throughout the capital via the London Beaver Working group.

The funding will also support the management of the London Beaver Working group, which we founded two years ago. Its members include a wide range of partners across the city, who are working towards managing natural colonisations and reintroductions in the years to come. These two work streams combined, will define a template for urban beavers not just in London, but across the UK.

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT

Bringing beavers back to London was the culmination of many years of hard work, but a successful reintroduction is just the start for this project! By donating today, your support could help us maximise the potential of this and other beaver reintroductions in the capital and restore this incredible species back to the landscapes where it once thrived.

Donate today!

A gift today could support our mission to Rewild Our Future in various ways:

£20 could pay for vital equipment for surveying the site, such as hand lenses and identification sheets

£50 could pay for camera trap equipment and surveyor training to monitor the welfare of the beavers and the variety of other wildlife species that they support

£100 could pay for repairs to the beaver-proof fencing ensuring the beavers are best placed to benefit biodiversity and people in Greenford

£250 could pay for a local school class to visit the site to learn about beavers

Thank you for all your support.

Citizen Zoo Crew