London
CNN
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Wild beavers have returned to London’s Ealing district after an absence of 400 years.
A household of 5 Eurasian beavers – a breeding pair and their three offspring – had been transported from Scotland and launched Wednesday on the Paradise Fields wetlands space, in Ealing, west London.
The Ealing Beaver Undertaking hopes the beavers might help scale back the chance of flooding, in addition to participating folks in nature.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan was on the launch. “[Beavers] are nature’s method of constructing dams … serving to the broader ecosystem,” he mentioned. “It’s good for people, it’s good for nature, it’s good for our metropolis.”
His Rewild London Fund supplied virtually £40,000 ($49,000) in funding for the venture.
Sean McCormack, chair of Ealing Wildlife Group, certainly one of many teams behind the beaver initiative, mentioned: “Paradise Fields is a little bit oasis of nature adjoining an enormous retail park and adjoining city Greenford.
“Greenford is a excessive flood threat zone, and that’s solely going to be exacerbated by local weather change. The beavers ought to construct a collection of dams via the positioning and create wetlands … this acts as an enormous sponge.”
Wild beavers had been hunted into extinction within the UK over 400 years in the past for his or her meat and fur pelts. In recent times, they’ve been reintroduced to Devon, southwest England, and in 2022, they had been legally outlined as a protected species in England, paving the way in which for additional conservation and rewilding.
In March 2022, beavers had been launched in Enfield, north London, and final month it was introduced {that a} child beaver had been born there, the primary beaver beginning in London for tons of of years.
The Ealing website will likely be closed to the general public for one month, to provide the beavers time to settle, however by the top of the 12 months the realm will likely be totally open to guests.
“We’re a part of nature, we have to reside alongside nature,” mentioned McCormack. “Beavers are an excellent instance of the ecosystem providers supplied to us.”