This beaver was released on Oct. 11, 2023, in Greenford, England, as part of the Ealing Beaver Project. A family of five beavers, two adults and three kids, was released into the 20-acre Paradise Fields nature reserve in West London, becoming the first beavers in the west of the British capital in 400 years. Photo Credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Animals United KingdomBeavers Help Cities Adapt to Heavier Rainfall
Reintroduced beavers are helping reduce flood risks and restore wetlands in the United Kingdom, offering a natural solution to the growing impacts of climate change.
“They effectively turned this site into a giant sponge that can take heavy rainfall and slowly release water back into the landscape, creating a lot more resilience for flooding,” said Sean McCormack, veterinarian and founder of the Ealing Beaver Project.
A family of five beavers released into a 20-acre urban nature reserve in West London in 2023 quickly transformed a former golf course by building dams, creating ponds and expanding wetlands. The changes helped prevent flooding near a local Underground station, encouraged the return of freshwater shrimp, eight bird species, two bat species and rare brown hairstreak butterflies, and removed the need for costly flood-control infrastructure. Similar projects are now operating across Britain as conservationists restore a species that disappeared more than 400 years ago, while helping recover wetlands, more than 95% of which have been lost nationwide.
