Ealing wildlife projects have received an additional £82,324 in funding from the Mayor of London's Rewild London Fund 2022. 

Ealing Council, Citizen Zoo, and The Selbourne Society have received this funding to help deliver their projects of reintroducing beavers to West London, making better homes for harvest mice, and creating new wildflower meadows. 

Beavers are being brought back to Ealing for the first time in 400 years by Citizen Zoo, Ealing Wildlife Group, and Friends of Horsenden Hill and the funding will go towards preparing and maintaining the home for the beavers and making sure they flourish. 

The Selbourne Society are helping with the substantially declining national population of harvest mice by reintroducing them at Perivale Wood and the funding will also help with a breeding facility at Horsenden Farm and a lab that studies wildlife and involves the community. 

The council will also be using the funding to get equipment and expertise to maintain a wildflower meadow, a wildflower meadow half the size of a football pitch can support 96,000 honeybees per day, and the council are doing this whilst getting rid of an existing meadow in Warren Farm for a full-sized football pitch. 

Councillor Deirdre Costigan, deputy leader and cabinet member for climate action commented: "The Mayor of London's 2022 Rewild London Fund will further our conservation work – to restore and protect wilderness in Ealing, increase biodiversity and the wonderful green spaces in our borough. 

"We are very excited that species like beavers and harvest mice can make a comeback to Ealing and cannot wait to welcome our new 'residents' and help them flourish. 

"In addition, having more wildflowers will help bring nature back to Ealing and our residents, providing them with opportunities to re-engage with it. 

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"Improving biodiversity is part of our ambitious but necessary target of achieving net zero carbon by 2030. These three initiatives will also help us in building a greener and more environmentally friendly borough for generations to come."