Hoopoe – A blog by nhbs – The NHBS Conservation Hub

Author Q&A: Peter Fretwell and Lisa Fretwell – The Penguin book of Penguins

A Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, Dr. Peter Fretwell, like the subjects of his new book entitled The Penguin book of Penguins, spends the majority of his time in the cold. As a senior geographic and remote sensing scientist, Peter has been responsible for leading many projects that further our understanding of the Polar regions and the wildlife that inhabits the area. Establishing and contributing to key projects to help better understand predators in the polar region by using satellite imagery has assisted in crucial conservation efforts.

For this book, Peter has joined forces with his wife Lisa who provides a unique selection of illustrations throughout the book. As an artist of over 30 years, Lisa draws on a wealth of experience having exhibited her works in London and New York.

Peter and Lisa Fretwell. Courtesy of the authors

We were lucky enough to catch up with Peter and Lisa recently to talk about the new publication.

What inspired you to write “The Penguin Book of Penguins”? Why penguins?

Peter: Strangely, there has never been a book titled The Penguin Book of Penguins, so when we were asked to write it, it was an opportunity we couldn’t turn down. I had previously written the Antarctic Atlas, published by Penguin Random House in 2020 and I have worked with penguins and on penguin science for twenty years. These small charismatic creatures are such a delight to be involved with, and they are a major part of working in Antarctica. Working at the British Antarctic Survey you pick up stories and anecdotes about them almost by osmosis, so having a chance to relay those narratives to a wider audience is a real privilege. We all love the jovial nature of these unique birds and their amazing adaptations to survive and thrive in some of the most challenging environments on Earth, but there is a more serious message that I also wanted to convey about the challenges that many of the species now face with climate change, pollution, habitat loss and overfishing. Communicating these challenges to a wider audience is one of our main drivers, whilst keeping the message light and not too “preachy”, to engage and inspire that wider readership. What was more, we decided we wanted to include drawings rather than photos, so my wife, Lisa, who is a professional artist joined the author team to bring the illustrations to life.

How has your work as a cartographer and scientist at the British Antarctic Survey influenced your writing and perspective on penguins?

Peter: I really started researching penguins through my work on mapping and remote sensing. I started my scientific career as a geographer and got a job in the British Antarctic Survey as a cartographer. I have always loved maps, especially mapping the natural world around us, but I also loved the science and was soon not just making maps but helping with the geospatial analysis. The British Antarctic Survey is a wonderful and diverse place for environmental science and to help the scientist analyse their data was fascinating – you never knew what you might be working on; one day it could be mapping and analysing volcanoes, and the next it might be cuttlefish distribution. In 2008, whilst making a map for our pilots, I discovered that we could see emperor penguin colonies in freely available Landsat satellite imagery. At the time, we didn’t know how many emperor penguin colonies there were or their distribution, so it was a groundbreaking discovery.

Peter Fretwell nose to nose with a wild Emperor Penguin.

How has the use of satellite imagery revolutionised the study and conservation of penguin colonies?

Peter: Fast-forward 17 years and we now know that there over double the number of colonies that we thought there were. We track their locations each year and do annual population assessments using satellite imagery. We have also used the technology to discover unique, previously unknown behaviours and traits, and we have witnessed and recorded the struggles and calamities they suffer as the continent warms and the sea ice diminishes. The Earth observation methods that we developed for emperors have been transferred to many other species of penguins and other types of wildlife around the world. My job itself has changed dramatically, from a scientific cartographer to a remote sensing expert and an expert on penguins and other polar vertebrate species that we track from space.

What were the major obstacles or challenges you’ve come across during your study of penguins?

Peter: Using satellites is a brilliant way to study these animals as most of the colonies are in extremely remote locations, where on-the-ground research is almost impossible. Even now the resolution of the most powerful satellites is still not good enough to see every individual adult and chick. We still need to get out there to calibrate our satellite counts and see how accurate they really are, but getting to emperor penguin colonies and synchronising ground (usually a unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV) counts with satellite data is really challenging, not just for emperor penguins, but for all the wildlife that we study from space. One of our current technical challenges is to improve the methods.

Lisa: Finding the inspiration and imagery for the more temperate penguins was quite challenging. The Antarctic and sub-Antarctic penguins were easier, as Peter had taken hundreds of photos of all the species throughout his career that I could work from. We had also visited New Zealand and seen many of the penguin species, like the adorable little blue penguin, there. On his travels, Peter had also photographed penguins on the Falklands and South America, but there were still some species that we had to trawl through published sources to get good reference images for. You have to be careful as what you see on the internet is not always correct, but it helps when you are married to a penguin expert!

Adélie penguin leaping out of the water. Lisa Fretwell

Many people feel rather enamoured by penguins. Why do you think that is?

Peter: I agree, and it’s hard to put your finger on the reason. Maybe it is a combination of their comic trusting nature and the fact that they are one of the few animals that stand upright on two legs, which makes them look a bit like us. It is really hard not to anthropomorphize penguins and compare them to little people with similar habits and social structures. Like us they often live in huge congregations, sometimes hundreds of thousands strong, they have complex courtship routines, bicker with their neighbours and do daily commutes to look after the family. They are also very tame, curious and often clumsy, which makes them quite endearing. Add their incredible, unique abilities in response to their challenging environments and you have an animal that really is quite engaging.

What are the biggest misconceptions about penguins that you would like to clarify?

Peter: There are many. Firstly, and perhaps obviously, penguins are a bird. They have feathers, not fur. Secondly, not all penguins live in Antarctica. A minority, only four of the eighteen species, breed around the coasts of the Southern Continent, but it’s fair to say that almost all (except for a few hundred) live in the Southern Hemisphere and most of them would call the waters around the Southern Ocean home.

What are the primary threats to penguin habitats, and how can these be mitigated?

Peter: It’s not just their habitats, but we can start there. Over the years, penguins have been eaten, killed for their feathers, had their eggs collected in their millions, been squashed and boiled down for their oil, and had their nesting habitats dug up and destroyed for fertiliser. In more recent times, urbanisation and land clearance has affected some of the more temperate birds, and the introduction of non-native species has had a devastating impact on many of the island-living species that are endemic to just one small group of islands.

Today, the main threats to the temperate species of penguins that live close to humanity are pollution from oil spills, overfishing and bycatch in their foraging grounds. But even in Antarctica and the remote island homes of penguins that no one ever visits, the influence of humans is affecting populations. Climate change is a global, man-made phenomenon that cannot be averted at a regional scale and is starting to have dramatic effect on many species. Although it is fair to say that in a warming environment, there will be winners and losers, at the moment, it looks like we will see more losers than winners.

BAS scientist Peter Fretwell in the field. Snow Hill, Antarctica.

What conservation efforts have been most effective in protecting penguin populations?

Peter: Around the world there are many amazing people and organisations helping penguins, from re-homing little penguins in New Zealand and Australia to the fantastic efforts to save African penguins from oil spills. In South America, there has been a great effort to protect breeding colonies from predation and on many sub-Antarctic islands there have been great programmes to eradicate non-native species that eat eggs and chicks, and trample breeding sites. There are fantastic efforts in many places that are saving penguins from the brink of extinction that anyone who loves or admires these birds should be grateful for.

Personally, what thoughts and feelings were you left with after this study of penguins?

Peter: Writing the book has not only highlighted how much we love penguins and how our culture has embraced these charismatic birds, but also the paradox of how badly we have treated them over the years and how threatened they are from human activity. Today most of those threats are indirect, but they are still caused by us and can still be solved by us.

Lisa: In terms of illustrations, I had to re-draw the ‘Penguin Digestor’ numerous times, because it made me feel a bit queasy just thinking about it. If you look at the original image it is very expressive and full of angst! I left those images of how we had mistreated penguins, like the Digestor and the Egg Collector until the very end when I could summon up the will to re-engage with them.

Emperor Penguin with chick. Lisa Fretwell

How do you envision the future for penguins?

Peter: For many species, it is a worrying time. Several are on the brink of extinction; some, like the emperor and chinstrap, are on a worrying trajectory caused by climate change that can only be solved at a global level. But there is hope. So far, we have not made any species of penguin extinct and there is still time to save all of the wonderful types of these birds, but the window for doing that is growing narrower every year.

What are the most important impressions you would like the reader to be left with after reading “The Penguin Book of Penguins”?

Peter: We hope readers will come to understand how wonderful and loveable these birds are and how invested into our culture they have become. When we think about the future of penguins, it can be a little depressing, but we are not there yet and that future is not yet written. If people care about a subject, then maybe they have it within their power to alter the future so that the worst predictions never come to light. If this book does anything, we hope it will enthuse people to help save penguins.

Lisa: I also hope that my illustrations enhance and portray these amazing birds in a true light. I tried to capture their personalities, particularly their behaviour, which I think is absolutely fascinating! The infographics should enable the reader to differentiate between each species, which for some penguin families, especially the banded penguins, is very subtle. I wanted to portray how endearing and intelligent these birds are. They have evolved to survive against the odds and their quirky nature is often fundamental to whether they breed successfully, survive extreme weather conditions and ultimately sustain their populations, and I wanted to reveal these quirks visually to enhance the reader’s experience.

What future research or projects are you planning on currently?

Lisa: I am planning to enhance my penguin illustrations with colour and exhibit them at a number of galleries. I have already been asked to create some other wildlife illustrations for the Arts Society Youth Fund locally, and I hope to illustrate or even write more books in the future.

Peter: I am currently leading multiple projects on penguins and other polar wildlife. My penguin-themed projects include mapping and monitoring seabirds on South Georgia, recording and improving the methods, carrying out population surveys of emperor penguins, and counting chinstrap and Macaroni penguins on the remote South Sandwich Islands. Results from all these studies should be coming out over the next year.

The Penguin Book of Penguins is available as a limited edition signed hardback book, while stocks last, from NHBS here.

From waste, to resource – an interview with Waterhaul

NHBS is delighted to be working with Waterhaul, a company turning harmful marine debris into valuable resources. Their commitment to tackling ocean plastic and promoting sustainable practices aligns closely with our own mission to protect wildlife and the natural environment.

Earlier this year, NHBS arranged a beach clean using Waterhaul products, giving us first-hand insight into their quality and effectiveness. After seeing them in action, we’re excited to now offer Waterhaul’s beach cleaning range through NHBS.

To learn more about the inspiring work behind the brand, we spoke with Jon Green at Waterhaul and asked a few questions about their mission, processes, and impact.

Waterhaul collecting “ghost gear” from across the UK coastline. Photo credit: Waterhaul

You primarily create your products from recycled “ghost gear”. What is ghost gear? and have you set your sights on any other forms of marine pollutants for future projects?

‘Ghost gear’ refers to any fishing gear that has been abandoned, lost, or discarded in the ocean. Once separated from fishing vessels, this gear continues to drift in the ocean, entangling marine life and damaging habitats. Ghost gear is a subset of marine litter but is particularly harmful due to it being designed specifically to trap and kill marine animals, combined with its extreme durability.

Unfortunately, around 640 000 tonnes of lost or discarded fishing gear end up in our oceans every single year, making it the most harmful and abundant plastic – there is certainly enough of it to keep us busy! That being said, in the past we have worked with other forms of plastic, for example our ‘ReTask The Mask’ campaign where we recycled PPE from the NHS post-COVID-19 into litter picking components.

How and where do you find the nets needed to supply your products?

Being a team of ocean users all passionate about protecting what we love, we often can be found out and around the Cornish coastline physically collecting reported ghost gear ourselves; from remote corners requiring boats, paddling or swimming to in plain sight on some of our busiest beaches following storms.

As well as collecting ourselves, we have a dedicated Impact & Recycling team who have established strong relationships and partnerships with local fishermen, harbours, organizations and waste management companies such as Biffa, providing an end-of-life solution and preventing the gear ending up in landfill.

We often hear stories of plastic packaging that has lasted for an age in our waters, only to wash up in recent times. Is there a particular piece of netting that stands out from your time working with marine plastic?

The most prominent one/example that comes to mind happened on September 21st 2023 where the Raggy Charters crew spotted a juvenile humpback whale in Algoa Bay, South Africa, exhausted and entangled in fishing gear and fighting for its life.

The whale was struggling under the weight of heavy plastic ropes cutting into its flesh as well as two large orange buoys, a small yellow buoy, and a huge amount of 20-mm nylon cable wrapped around its caudal fin.

A rescue operation, led by the South African Whale Disentanglement Network took hours of painstaking effort involving multiple rescue boats and a coordinated team where they were able to free the whale who swam away, shattered but alive.

The ghost gear that ensnared the humpback was recovered and through collaborative links with the World Cetacean Alliance (WCA), made its way to us, where we saw an opportunity to create something unique and share this near-tragedy as part of our ‘Rescue to Recycle’ Campaign. An initiative that transforms harmful marine debris into products that drive change and supports ongoing conservation efforts.

Gathered plastic marine debris is recycled for manufacturing. Photo credit: Waterhaul

What percentage of your total product is made from ocean-reclaimed materials?

100% of all plastic components across our entire product range are made from Traceable Marine Plastic (TMP), our material feedstock derived from lost, abandoned and discarded fishing gear. Our eyewear frames are also made 100% from TMP.

Do you partner with any marine conservation or environmental organizations?

Waterhaul was founded with a background in and ethos of marine conservation and environmental direct impact, ultimately initiating the mission we are on. We are incredibly proud to be supported by and have partnered with organizations such as Surfers Against Sewage, The Wave project, Sea Shepherd, The RNLI, Cornwall Wildlife Trust, Canal and River Trust, and many more.

Can you explain the process of transforming ocean plastic into your final products?

Every single piece of ghost gear, whether collected by ourselves or the end-of-life fishing gear we have received from the source, is taken to our processing unit here in Cornwall.

The gear is then separated by polymer type and recycled in the UK through a mechanical process of shredding and washing. The plastic is then extruded into pellets and becomes our fully traceable raw material, Traceable Marine Plastic (TMP).

We then injection mould this plastic into our range of purposeful products. This is the stage where we give new value to plastic ‘waste’. Our impact is driven further by our extensive network of partners, from stockists to product partners and more.

What’s the best way for someone to get involved in helping your mission, any tips for how everyone can make a difference?

Aside from the conscious purchasing of products that make a direct impact and questioning the materials of where our products come from, getting out there is the most efficient way of making a difference. Grab a litter picker and whether it’s a 2-minute beach clean, a litter pick around your nearest green area or picking up rubbish you pass on the street, it all makes a huge difference in protecting our planet’s ecosystem and wildlife! Spending a few extra minutes to sort out recycling from domestic waste will also play a huge role. Finally, talking about and sharing stories on this often-overlooked topic will also spark conversations and inspire others to go out and do the same thing!

Waterhaul ocean friendly litter picking kit made from recycled marine debris. Photo credit: Waterhaul

Browse the Waterhaul products available through NHBS here

Visit the Waterhaul website to learn more about their work here

Making data work for nature: 25 years of the National Biodiversity Network Trust

The National Biodiversity Network Trust has been supporting the sharing of wildlife data since 2000. The trust consists of over 200 members, ranging from world renowned organisations to individual enthusiasts and there are now more than 300 million wildlife records available through the NBN Atlas.
Mandy Henshall, communications and engagement manager for NBN tells NHBS about the early days of the trust, achievements so far, how you can get involved and their hopes for the next 25 years.

How did the NBN Trust come into being in 2000?

It might come as a surprise, but there’s never been a legal requirement for any one organisation to collect or manage biological records over the long term.

Despite, or because of this, the Biological Records Centre (BRC) was set up in 1964 to bring together data, mostly from volunteer recording groups, share it with conservation organisations and publish the findings.

The BRC has done a brilliant job, but without a joined-up approach or enough resources to support both local and national recorders, no single organisation could get a full picture of what was going on. As the need to report on environmental issues grew, so did the pressure to make data more accessible.

The push to create the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) came from the Biodiversity Action Planning process, which followed the 1992 Rio Summit. A report from the Coordinating Commission for Biological Recording helped bring together UK organisations in 1997 to pool their efforts and make sharing data easier.

That’s how the NBN Trust came to be. It was set up as an independent charity in 2000 to help build and support the Network.

If you want to delve a little deeper, you can find out more about our story and our founding members on the NBN Trust website.

What was the early work focused on?

In the beginning, the focus was all about getting things off the ground and developing projects and activities that would help move the NBN Trust forward and support the wider Network. Some of the key things we worked on included:

Creating a shared set of principles for how data should be exchanged

Hosting an annual Conference to bring people together, share ideas, and build connections across the partnership

Launching the NBN Gateway — the first online platform for sharing biodiversity data (this was replaced by the NBN Atlas in 2017)

Building the Species Dictionary (now called the UK Species Inventory – UKSI) in 2003, which enabled data to be indexed and searched

Producing guidance on everything from managing and sharing data to handling sensitive information and intellectual property rights, so that data could be used more freely and confidently

Creating mapping resources to support better mapping and recording

Much of this is still central to our work today.

What has been the biggest change for the NBN Trust and wildlife recording since 2000?

There have been two major changes over the years:

The first is all about technology, specifically the launch of the NBN Atlas in 2017. This platform is based on the Atlas for Living Australia and was built to handle the growing amount of data being shared. When we moved from the NBN Gateway, we were making 117 million records available. Now, the NBN Atlas holds over 300 million species records, so almost double. Downloads have also increased significantly, with over 1 billion records downloaded by the end of 2024.

The second big change is how much easier it has become for anyone to record and share wildlife sightings. Thanks to apps and websites like iNaturalistUK, iRecord, and other platforms, many more people are getting involved. This new and accessible technology helps to standardise record collection and gather more valuable data, from experts and citizen scientists alike, which can be used to protect and restore nature.

Looking ahead: What might the next 25 years hold for the NBN Trust?

Undoubtedly, technology will continue to keep evolving and changing how we record and share biodiversity data. We’ve already started seeing this with the rise of environmental-derived DNA (eDNA) datasets on the NBN Atlas, and that’s only going to grow. We’ve made big upgrades to the Atlas to keep up with technological advances and the sheer volume of data, and we’ll need to keep adapting as new tools and techniques come along.

We might also see more automated data collection, like AI-powered species identification from photos or sounds, and even drones or remote sensors helping to monitor habitats in real time. These kinds of innovations could make recording faster, more accurate, and accessible to even more people.

It’s not just about technology though, who we engage with in the future will be crucial to our success. We’d like to increase our impact and our mission by working not only with data collectors, academics, and policy makers, but also with businesses, financial institutions, and the private sector all of whom have a crucial role to play in tackling the planetary emergencies through data, collaboration, and investment in nature. This will be a key change for us, but one which is really exciting.

Despite these broader changes, the heart of the Network will still be the recorders: the volunteers, the citizen scientists, and the organisations who collect, share and verify data. Without them, there wouldn’t be an NBN Atlas, or a National Biodiversity Network.

So, as we celebrate being 25, we’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who’s part of the NBN community. Whether you’re a member of or donor to the NBN Trust, a partner in the NBN, a data provider to the NBN Atlas, or someone who’s just started recording wildlife – you’re helping us to make data work for nature.

How can people get involved?

We’ve already talked about the importance of people and data to the Network, so one really important activity for people to do is to record the wildlife they see and to share the details. We’ve got information about this on the website – https://nbn.org.uk/record-share-explore-data/record-wildlife-a-fun-way-to-help-nature/

We have our annual NBN Conference on 20th November in Bristol. This will be themed around our 25 years anniversary and will delve into the past, present and future of the NBN. It’s also a great occasion to come together and celebrate the amazing people already recording nature through the NBN Awards for Wildlife Recording. The Awards’ shortlist can be found here and NHBS is one of our generous sponsors.

Finally, as a UK registered-charity, income generated from our donations and partnerships helps fund our vital work supporting the whole UK nature recovery sector with wildlife data.

We’re nothing without our members, supporters and donors and we’re grateful to every individual and organisation that contributes to our work. If you would like a future where nature is thriving everywhere, in all its diversity, please consider a donation. Every penny will go directly to our work – to make data work for nature. Thank you. https://nbn.org.uk/support-us/

Mandy Henshall Communications and Engagement Manager NBN

Book Review – The Lives of Bats: A Natural History

The Lives of Bats is part of Princeton University Press’s series The Lives of the Natural World that has grown to 14 volumes. Technically speaking, it is designed and produced by UniPress Books, which I have described elsewhere as the spiritual successor of Ivy Press and which is similarly known for producing good-looking books. As with the other volumes, this one is chock-a-block with full-colour photos, to the point that you would be hard-pressed to find a single page of plain text. It follows the same formula as other volumes, ending each chapter with a short species gallery that profiles four or five relevant or noteworthy species.

Professor of biology DeeAnn M. Reeder’s research programme encompasses physiology, immunology, disease ecology, behaviour, evolution, and conservation, and bats are often her model organism of choice. She is only all too aware of the dislike and fear that bats instil, especially as reservoir hosts of diseases, so an important focus of this book is to demystify and (if that is even a word) de-demonise bats by giving a factual and up-to-date primer on their biology. After a brief introduction, Reeder picks seven topics—evolution, anatomy, echolocation, diet, thermoregulation, reproduction, and disease—before ending with a chapter on past and present interactions between bats and humans.

If there is a unifying theme to this book, it is how much the biology of bats is shaped by the demands of flight. Anatomical adaptations are the first to come to mind, from the ankle spur (a calcar) that supports the wing membrane between the hind limbs (the uropatagium), to the five extra muscles that control the tautness and curvature of the wing membrane. Reeder’s favourite overlooked adaptation is the hind limbs that are rotated 180°, meaning the soles of the feet face forward and the knees bend backwards compared to other mammals.

The demands of flight extend far beyond anatomy, though. To conserve energy, bats can go into torpor, lowering their metabolic rate and body temperature. This can be as brief as a few hours or be extended for weeks on end, at which point we call it hibernation. Like humans, bats generate their own body heat (endothermy), but unlike us, they can conserve energy by allowing their body temperature to track the environmental temperature (heterothermy) while we maintain a steady body temperature (homeothermy). The need for energy conservation even impacts their reproduction. Bat pups are huge compared to their parents, meaning pregnancy is energetically costly on two fronts: foetal development takes energy, but so does flying around with all that extra mass. To make sure birth coincides with peak food availability, female bats can store sperm (a well-known trait in many organisms) but also slow down or even pause (!) foetal development.

Reeder features many other notable traits, adding an extra layer of information to the basic facts that will be rattling around in most people’s heads. Sure, bats echolocate, but what I did not realise is that some groups emit sound out of their mouth and others out of their nose. The family Pteropodidae, the fruit bats, have lost echolocation (fruit tends not to move), yet some species have secondarily re-evolved it, relying on wing-clapping or tongue-clicking to help them navigate their cave roosts. And where many bats issue a call and then listen out for the echo, some bats do not separate the two in time but in frequency, calling at a different frequency than the echoes return at. This nifty feat of sensory biology allows them to produce sound while simultaneously receiving and interpreting the incoming echoes.

I also came away from this book with a much better appreciation of the family Phyllostomidae. When the University of Chicago Press published a book dedicated to this family in 2020, I was admittedly nonplussed: what is so special about them? The incredible diversity of their diet. This family includes carnivorous bats dining on small reptiles, birds, and mammals. It includes the three species of vampire bat whose sanguivorous habits have become the stuff of legend. More relevant but less appreciated is that, by eating fruit, pollen, and nectar, they are important pollinators, including of many cacti and important crops.

Reeder is at her most strident when it comes to the role of bats in diseases, including COVID-19. Yes, bats harbour viruses and other pathogens that impact public health, but spillovers are a human problem caused by our relentless destruction of wildlife habitat. We should be wary of “the sometimes sensationalistic portrayal of bats, writ large, as hosts of deadly viruses” (p. 250); the same can be said of many other animal groups, including primates, rodents, and birds. Reeder is a proponent of the One Health framework that recognises that you cannot tackle human, animal, and ecosystem health in isolation because they are all interconnected.

Given the format and aim of this series, Reeder only has the space to go so deep on these and other topics. However, as with the book I reviewed previously, this is not just a regurgitation of popular information. You can tell this is written by a specialist in her field who is carefully weighing up how much information to give you and how much to hold back. The resources section recommends some of the many technical books if you want to read deeper, plus a two-page reference section to journal articles, including studies up to 2023 and 2024.

Bats are particularly photogenic, and the editorial team at UniPress Books has scoured several stock photo libraries, as well as the work of numerous individual photographers, credited in the back of the book. There are memorable photos here while a small number of neat infographics are contributed by illustrator Sarah Skeate.

The Lives of Bats continues the series’ successful formula: challenge one or two subject experts to write an accessible introduction that can serve multiple audiences. For novices, this is a great first stop on bats that will give you a well-informed introduction to their unique biology (and equally, it is a book that you can safely gift them). However, the book is also rewarding for biologists who just happen to have studied other organisms but have a hankering for bats. I enjoyed The Lives of Bats more than I thought I would, and by the end, I felt it had subtly enriched my knowledge.

This Week in Biodiversity News – 3rd September 2025

Rhizostoma pulmo jellyfish spotted in Canet-en-Roussillon. CC-BY-SA-3.0 Steren Giannini

Unprecedented and expected… marine heat in 2025

As anticipated, in 2025, UK seas have had their warmest temperatures since records began. The first seven months of the year average 0.2°C higher than any year since 1980.

The observable outcome of this is the sometimes-abundant appearance of marine species that are usually found in low numbers in UK waters – Common Octopus, Bluefin Tuna, Mauve Stingers and Barrel Jellyfish have all been observed at unprecedented levels. Although likely to delight some marine naturalists, the unusually high presence of these species could be indicative of ecosystem destabilisation and the collapse of the global aquatic food web.

An eco-populist shift for the Green party

Zack Polanski has won the election to lead the Green Party in the UK. Defeating Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, two of the party’s four elected MPs, Polanski promises to actualise his vision of a green, mass membership, ‘eco-populist’ movement. The new leader aims to reverse the perceived ineffectuality of the established party approach by tactically parroting, and ideologically challenging, Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

The new leader is ‘open to’ collaboration with Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana’s temporarily titled ‘Your Party’ and has directly vowed to replace Keir Starmer’s Labour.

It is unclear what the Green’s ‘eco-populist’ shift will mean for UK politics, but Polanski’s election victory represents a significant development for a splintered but variously surging political left.

European badger photographed in Scotland. Charlie Marshall, Flickr

Legal action against the badger cull

Campaigners from Wild Justice and the Badger Trust have launched a legal challenge against the government’s decision to award additional badger cull permits. The controversial decision to renew licences, despite a previously promised ‘phase out’, has been met with considerable pushback from campaigners who cite the shaky evidence used to justify the culling of badgers in the UK. Rosie Wood, chairperson of the Badger Trust, says that ‘Bovine TB is overwhelmingly a cattle-to-cattle spread disease.? Follow the evidence – end the badger cull, stop this egregious attack on nature and stop misleading the public, farmers and the taxpayer.’ Look out for her commentary on the ongoing case in an upcoming issue of British Wildlife.

A setback for the global plastics treaty

The United Nations meeting marked the most recent push to actualise a global plastics treaty. Representatives of 100 nations called for an ambitious and effective treaty to curtail global plastic production but were stalled by 234 lobbyists from the oil industry who argued instead for a focus on ‘recycling’ and the continuation of unregulated plastic production. This breakdown of negotiation is the latest in a long line of failures to meet deadlines for the treaty – meaning business as usual for oil states and the accelerated detriment for ecosystems.

Protestor highlighting Plastic pollution overshoot in London. CC BY-SA 2.0 Alisdare Hickson, Flickr

Book review: Is a River Alive?

***** A hydrological odyssey

Nature writer Robert Macfarlane will need little introduction, having authored a string of successful books on people, landscape, and language. Billed as his most political book to date, Is a River Alive? sees Macfarlane wrestle with the titular question and examine its relevance to the nascent Rights of Nature movement.

At the heart of this book are three long, 70–100-page parts that detail visits to three river systems in Ecuador, India, and Canada. They are separated by short palate cleansers, describing brief visits to local springs close to his home in Cambridge. In the back, you will find a surprisingly thorough ten page glossary, notes, a select bibliography, a combined acknowledgements and aftermaths section detailing developments up to publication, and an index.

This dry enumeration aside, it is the quality of the writing that we are all here for, and Macfarlane is on fine form as he immerses you in the landscapes he visits. These journeys are not solo affairs, however, and in each place he is accompanied by knowledgeable local guides: some are long-term collaborators, others he has only just met. It is a motley crew that includes a mycologist, a musician, and a lawyer, as well as judges, activists, back-country experts, and his close friend Wayne Chambliss. Macfarlane has a knack for giving warm and memorable portraits of them, as well as others they meet along the way.

The political aspect of this book stems from the fact that all these river systems are under threat; from mining in Ecuador, industrial pollution in India, and the construction of hydroelectric dams in Canada. In part, the book is a reportage on the environmental harm caused by resource extraction, economic development, and heavy industry, and the slow violence it inflicts on predominantly poor and marginalised communities. In Chennai, he graphically details how this has already come to pass, while in Ecuador and Canada, it could come to pass if certain companies were to get their way. In response, Western and Indigenous activists have rallied behind the Rights of Nature movement that originated in 1972 when lawyer Christopher Stone asked whether trees should have standing. Its proponents argue that natural entities such as mountains, forests, and rivers can and should have rights—legal personhood even—and thus protection by law.

So, is a river alive? What makes this book intriguing and thought-provoking is that Macfarlane does not provide a straightforward answer (“Yes, of course rivers are alive and here is why”). Instead, he wrestles with this question in full view of the reader. Clearly, he supports the environmentalist agenda and quickly counters the claim of anthropomorphism. He refers to rivers as a “who” and not an “it”, condemning the habit of the English language to “it” all natural entities, “a mode of address that reduces them to the status of stuff” (p. 22). I like to reference the work of Eileen Crist to make the point that language shapes our reality, and Macfarlane condenses it masterfully here: “Words make worlds” (p. 22).

Macfarlane’s struggle plays out along two axes. First, how can we really speak on nature’s behalf? What does a river want? He worries that in granting rights to nature, we will simply end up with “human proxies […] ventriloquizing ‘river’ and ‘forest’ in a kind of cos-play animism” (p. 83). His close friend Wayne justifiably asks whether the whole movement is just “a disguised form of political manoeuvring” (p. 292), in which assigning personhood to natural entities merely becomes a means to an end. Second, there is a philosophical and linguistic struggle. What words can truly capture this? “The history of literature is littered with the debris of attempts to utter water” (p. 289). In searching for a “grammar of animacy” (sensu Kimmerer), he is frustrated with “language’s short reach” (p. 260) and repeatedly runs into a wall. Partially, it seems the answers cannot be verbalised but have to be bodily experienced, as his journeys show him; partially, Indigenous thinking provides him with answers.

On that latter point I have to be honest: though I am supportive of this cause, as a child of the Western, scientific tradition, Indigenous thinking does not resonate with me much, and this is entirely *my* shortcoming. Macfarlane, it seems, sympathises, struggling with it himself: “It requires unlearning, a process much harder than learning” (p. 19). That said, there are moments where he speaks to the biologist in me, such as when discussing the deep-time maps of geologist Harold Fisk that show the many past meanders of the Mississippi River snaking across the landscape, making rivers seem very much alive. Similarly, when mycologist Giuliana Furci points out the consequences of deforestation (when the cloud-forest goes, so do its rivers), you have to wonder: are these rivers a form of niche construction, or even (if you squint hard, I admit) an extended phenotype of a kind? By and large, however, even if life is a fuzzy phenomenon that lacks sharp boundaries, the scientist in me feels that the question is stretching a metaphor beyond its breaking point.

So, I ask again, is a river alive? Better perhaps to ask, I think: Does it matter? Given how entwined life is with water and how dependent human societies are on rivers, the question seems moot to me. For most people, this is ultimately about environmental protection, in which case, whether or not a river has vital signs is irrelevant. However, if personhood is what it takes, given existing legal frameworks, then, sure, why not? A second concern I have is that of enforcement. All these lofty declarations risk being yet more paper parks if they do not have the force of the law behind them. Though Macfarlane does not explicitly raise this point, both his main text and his aftermaths give examples where judges have successfully invoked the Rights of Nature to halt or prevent companies from extracting natural resources. A final concern, as was so clearly argued in The Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise, is that protective measures risk merely displacing resource extraction to somewhere else with less oversight. As long as there is demand for resources and money on the table, companies will continue extracting value from nature. This deeper cause is not dealt with here, though expecting Macfarlane to imagine the end of capitalism, pretty please, would be a tad unrealistic of me. That is a thorny, multifaceted problem if ever there was one.

Is a River Alive? is an intriguing and thought-provoking piece of nature writing that refuses to give easy answers. I imagine that this is not what Macfarlane’s readers are after anyway, and, if so, they will be amply served by the spectacle of a master wordsmith grappling with a weighty question.

In the Field – Testing the new Apodemus PippyG bat detector

The PippyG is a low-cost, static, passive bat detector made by Apodemus. The construction consists of a Raspberry Pi board with an additional ultrasonic microphone. The unit was designed to open baseline monitoring of bats to landowners, researchers, and the wider public, aiming to be as accessible as possible. Requiring only the device, a micro-SD card, and either a USB-B battery pack or 3 AA batteries. Analysis is easy with the PippyG as recordings are formatted ready for the BTO pipeline, a free online platform for auto-analysis of ultrasonic bat calls, providing species ID, and even behavioural tags for each call (see table below).

Currently, there is no official waterproofing option. However, this leaves the option for experimentation open. A few makers have very kindly created freely available 3D print designs if you have access to a printer, otherwise, I have heard of people trying various options, from leaving them out as is to using a plastic takeaway box with a microphone-sized hole drilled in.

Unfortunately, I do not have access to a garden or any land to demo the PippyG; instead, I had to settle for the alleyway, which my flat backs onto. A Good test for urban environments where most of us (and some bat species) spend a large proportion of our time. I opted for a setup using a battery pack and a long USB-B cable, which I attached to the PippyG and used as an anchor to hang out of my window.

Choosing the settings is simple and easy using the Pipistrelle app available on both the Google Play Store and the App Store. I decided to test for 2 hours from 22:00 till 12:00, with the trigger setting at 72 (considered low, but I was wary of the rabble emanating from the pub garden next door). Once I decided on the appropriate settings, I held the speaker of my phone to the mic and “chirped”.

The concept of chirping was a new one to me, but it’s simple and fantastic. Rather than connecting directly to the device using Bluetooth to establish your desired settings, the “chirp” encodes the settings into sound waves that the Pippy G picks up using its built-in mic.

The device flashed, indicating it was ready and the “chirp” has been successful. Time to hang it out of the window and wait.

The following day I excitedly transferred the data from the PippyG onto my computer, ready to upload to the BTO pipeline.

And the results are in…

One species of bat, A Common Pipistrelle, most likely emerged from my upstairs neighbour’s roof. Looking at the results, it was in a feeding frenzy with 56 echolocation calls recorded in 2 hours. Interestingly, even though the device was set to record at the ultrasonic level, it still picked up a few bird calls, most likely the seagulls that like to occupy the rooftops on either side of the alleyway.

In the future, I would love to put it to the test with a longer deployment in a less urban environment with the hope of catching more of the 18 bat species the UK has to offer.

The Call of the Loon – pioneering seabird conservation research by kayak

NHBS was proud to support Roland Arnison and his 2025 Call of the Loon Expedition, providing him with monitoring equipment including trail cameras and audio recorders. Roland’s mission to document Scotland’s seabirds and explore innovative, low-impact survey methods aligns strongly with NHBS’ commitment to advancing field research and conservation. With so many seabird populations in sharp decline, we were pleased to contribute to this important work, which explores new ways to monitor and protect seabirds and could benefit future conservation projects.

We have really enjoyed following Roland’s progress and seeing some of the incredible photos and recordings he has captured, and we hope you will too.

I have spent the last two summers kayaking around the Hebrides in Scotland, on the hunt for seabirds. The heart of this solo expedition is my self-appointed mission to record the calls of all of Scotland’s seabird species. This has gone well and after kayaking 700 miles, visiting countless seabird colonies on remote islands, I have captured sound recordings of 25 of the 30 species on my list, including the bird after which the Call of the Loon expedition is named: the Great Northern Diver Gavia immer, aka the Loon.

The solo sea kayaking has been adventurous, challenging, and at times at little too perilous. In 2024, my kayak floated away from the shore (due to a momentary lapse of concentration!). My attempts to recover it by swimming in the cold waters off the Isle of Coll resulted in hypothermia, exhaustion, the intervention of the Coastguard- and no kayak. My precious kayak was later found off south Skye and I was reunited with it and able to continue the expedition. In 2025, the expedition took me to the Outer Hebrides and I grabbed the opportunity to paddle out to St Kilda, that magnificent compact rocky archipelago in the Atlantic with the tallest seacliffs in Britain, some 40 miles off the west coast of North Uist. St Kilda is a haven for seabirds, a World Heritage Site, managed by National Trust for Scotland and an obvious destination for me on my seabird expedition. But it did involve a memorable 14 hour, 60km epic solo paddle to get there.

The Call of the Loon expedition has a particular relevance due to the ecological state of Britain’s seabirds. Most of our seabirds have seen significant declines in the last 20 years, due to climate change, overfishing, and the impact of invasive predator species amongst other factors. Of the 25 seabird species that regularly breed in Scotland, 21 are on the Red or Amber lists of Birds of Conservation Concern. In Scotland, over twenty years, puffin populations have dropped by 32%, Arctic Skua numbers fell by 66% and the rare Leach’s Storm Petrel is now classed as ‘critically endangered’ in the UK, with its Scottish population crashing by almost 80%. The bird flu epidemic in recent years has also hit some species such as Gannets and Great Skuas very hard.

The Call of the Loon expedition has broader research aims beyond the quest to record the sounds of seabirds. One, disarmingly simple, research question I have been trying to answer is: is it possible to carry out transect surveys of seabirds from the cockpit of a sea kayak while paddling along coastlines and across the open sea? So far, my practical trials have shown some successes, recording both digitally (on a tablet or phone in Aquapac waterproof cases) and through use of waterproof notebooks. More specific research aims include using remote recording equipment to identify the presence of particular seabird species or to reveal certain behaviours, while minimising disturbance of the birds. The Song Meter Micro 2 remote audio recorder has been an essential piece of equipment, allowing me to capture recordings of seabird calls that I would not otherwise have been able to achieve, and providing evidence of the presence of nocturnal seabirds – notably European Storm Petrel Hydrobates pelagicus and Leach’s Storm Petrel Hydrobates leucorhous. Like many seabird species, these petrels spend most of their time at sea, only visiting land for the summer breeding season. In Britain, they only nest on remote rocky islands, far from humans (and rats). They only come and go from their crevice or burrow nests on dark nights, as a predator avoidance tactic. So, you can appreciate that these seabirds are not easy to find. Leach’s petrel is especially rare in Britain, only a handful of known colonies nest on offshore islands off the Outer Hebrides, with around 90% of them on St Kilda. The use of a sea kayak to reach their remote colonies and the deployment of the Song Meter Micro 2 have been powerful tools to find and record their calls.

A Browning Recon Force Elite HP5 trail camera has also been useful. I have used this remote camera to record images of puffins as they visit their burrow nests. The initial idea was to capture photos of Puffins carrying fish in their beaks to feed to their puffling chicks. These photos can be used to identify the type and quantities of fish that puffins are catching, as researched by National Trust for Scotland’s ‘Puffarazi’ citizen science project: https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/seabirds-camera-action But use of the camera trap outside a puffin burrow also revealed simpler data: how often the puffins visit their nests and at which times of day.

Experimenting with the Song Meter Micro 2 and Browning Elite has opened up new possibilities in potential applications in seabird research, and I am currently developing a plan for a future seabird research expedition using remote recording devices. Anyone interested in collaborating with me on this can contact me on roland@shearwater.me.uk

NHBS has been a very supportive partner in the Call of the Loon expedition, through supplying the research equipment and their technical advice and I would like to thank them hugely for their support.

The Call of the Loon expedition is also supported by Sea Kayaking UK, Celtic Paddles, Sennheiser, Whetman Equipment, Reed Chillcheater, Aquapac and the European Nature Trust.

If you are interested in the Call of the Loon expedition, you can read more and sign up to the newsletter on the Call of the Loon website: https://rolandarnison.co.uk/call-of-the-loon-expedition/ and support the expedition through the Crowdfunder: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/call-of-the-loon-expedition-2025 You can read and subscribe to the expedition blogs: https://rolandarnisonadventures.wordpress.com/category/call-of-the-loon-2025/ and follow the expedition on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roland.arnison and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rolandarnisonadventures/

Author – Roland Arnison

Dave Ellacott – Reserves Warden for Wild Planet Trust

NHBS has teamed up with the Wild Planet Trust as part of our ongoing commitment to support wildlife and conservation. We have donated over 30 habitat boxes alongside wildlife cameras for use both on their local reserves and zoo sites.

We recently had the opportunity to speak with Reserves Warden Dave Ellacott, who is responsible for both the Primely and Clennon reserves. This week, we chatted to him about the work of the trust, his plans for the donated boxes and what successes and challenges he faces in his work.

Firstly, can you tell us a little bit about Wild Planet Trust, what you do and how the organisation began?

Wild Planet Trust – previously called the Whitley Wildlife Conservation Trust – operates zoos, but we also manage nature reserves. I look after two of them: Primley and Clennon. Primley is what remains of the old garden and parkland that surrounded Primley House, the former estate of the Whitley family and residence of the zoo’s founder, Herbert Whitley. In 1995, the first warden was brought in to transform it into a local nature reserve and public open space. It’s been a popular spot for locals ever since. Clennon serves a slightly different purpose. For the most part, there is no public access. This allows us to safeguard the habitat from disturbances caused by human presence. However, Paignton Zoo’s Nature Trail, which zoo visitors can access, offers the public the opportunity to experience a small corner of this reserve, including our traditionally managed coppice woodland. Both reserves play their part in supporting local ecosystems while offering people genuinely rewarding places to connect with nature.

What are you hoping to achieve with the installation of our habitat boxes across your three nature reserves?

These sites already have considerable natural assets – caves, some magnificent veteran trees, and areas we deliberately leave undisturbed. The habitat boxes should provide those additional ecological niches that might otherwise be absent. It’s about creating opportunities for species that need very specific conditions for nesting or shelter. Every habitat has its gaps, and these installations should help fill some of those spaces. We’re curious to see what takes up residence and how it might shift the balance of wildlife we’re already supporting.

A large part of the work that Wild Planet Trust does is focused on educating the next generation on the natural world. Why do you think this is so important?

While education isn’t really my area – I’m more focused on the practical side of habitat management – I can see how these reserves function as living demonstrations of what healthy ecosystems actually look like. When families explore the Nature Trail at Clennon or spend time wandering Primley’s varied landscapes, they’re experiencing woodland, meadow, and wetland habitats firsthand rather than just reading about them. There’s something valuable in that direct encounter with nature that you simply can’t replicate in a classroom. People need to feel that connection before they truly understand why conservation matters.

What conservation challenges have you faced over the past few years?

Ash Dieback has been particularly challenging – it’s an ongoing process of assessment, removal, and replanting that’s fundamentally altered the character of our woodlands. You’re constantly weighing safety against habitat value and planning for a very different canopy structure than what was there before. Then there’s the perpetual balancing act between maintaining public access and protecting sensitive habitats – you want people to engage with these places without compromising their ecological integrity. But we’re increasingly seeing the impact from climate change too, which adds another layer of complexity. From gradual shifts in species behaviour and plant communities, to the sudden loss of our 230-year-old Lucombe oak in Primley during Storm Kathleen last year – we’re continuously having to adapt our management approaches while working within realistic resource constraints. All of this means being strategic about where you can make the most meaningful impact.

Halting species decline and preserving vital ecosystems is a key aspect of the work you do. Do you have a favourite success story that you can share with us?

The transformation of Primley’s meadowland over the past three decades is probably our most satisfying long-term achievement. It’s been a simple but persistent approach – removing the annual hay crop to gradually reduce soil fertility and allow a more diverse plant community to establish. What was once a rather monotonous sward dominated by aggressive grasses has evolved into diverse wildflower meadow. The change has been incremental but vital for native biodiversity, supporting insects, birds, and small mammals. It’s a perfect example of how patient, consistent management can restore ecosystems, even if the results take decades to fully appreciate.

Finally, are you working on any other conservation projects at the moment that we can hear about?

Maintaining what we have certainly keeps us occupied, but we’re also developing some thoughtful enhancement projects. We’re planning watercourse improvements across both sites – installing leaky dams and other features that should improve flood resilience while creating diverse wetland habitats. The Ash Dieback situation, while challenging, has also created opportunities to diversify our woodland structure with more resilient native species. We’re thinking carefully about connectivity too – how these reserves can better serve as stepping stones in the broader landscape for wildlife movement. It’s about working pragmatically with the challenges we face while looking for those opportunities to genuinely improve what we can offer.

Bringing the Beaver Back to Ealing: A Community-Led Rewilding Success Story

Autumn 2023 saw the exciting return of beavers to England’s capital city, with the release of five animals in an 8ha enclosure at Paradise Fields, Ealing. Here, Dr Abhilesh Dhawanjewar, Technology Lead for the Ealing Beaver Project, shares an account of this community rewilding project, from its conception and achievements so far to hopes for the future of the Ealing beavers.

Bringing the Beaver Back to Ealing: A Community-Led Rewilding Success Story

Eurasian Beavers (Castor fiber), Europe’s largest rodent are incredible creatures with an amazing ability to transform their surroundings, lending them the well-deserved title of ‘ecosystem engineers’. Occupying vast regions across Europe and northern Asia for over 12 million years, they have shaped our waterways and wetland habitats, creating rich and resilient ecosystems supporting a wide diversity of plants and animals. Commercial demand for their fur, meat and castoreum led to relentless hunting and persecution of the beavers, driving them to extinction in the UK 400 years ago. The species narrowly avoided the same fate across Europe, its survival hinging on just eight relict populations that totalled a mere 1200 individuals. Their absence from the UK has coincided with a 90% reduction in Britain’s native wetlands in the last century and increased flood and drought risks. Having realised their ecological benefits, beaver reintroductions across Europe have helped to restore habitats and boost biodiversity. Reintroduction projects in the UK gaining momentum lately.

Beaver at Paradise Fields by Abhilesh Dhawanjewar

The Road to Ealing

As the UK government refined its reintroduction strategy, free-living beavers were already on London’s doorstep, with populations expanding in Kent and Oxfordshire. Anticipating their natural return, the London Beaver Working Group was formed in 2021 to proactively manage their arrival. After consultations and site visits, Paradise Fields in Ealing was chosen as an ideal location for a trial reintroduction. The site was already targeted for expensive flood mitigation engineering works, and beavers presented a natural, cost-effective alternative. After a license was granted in January 2023, the project gained momentum, fuelled by enthusiastic local volunteer groups and vital seed funding from Ealing Council and the Mayor of London. Thanks to the collaborative efforts of Ealing Wildlife Group, Citizen Zoo, Friends of Horsenden and Ealing Council with additional support from Beaver Trust, the Ealing Beaver Project was born with three key objectives:

Bring back the Beaver: Reintroduce beavers for their intrinsic value in nature
Mitigate urban flooding: Learn to manage beavers in the urban context and harness their water-engineering skills
Boost Biodiversity: Restore wetland habitat and encourage a richer diversity of flora and fauna
Public Engagement: Foster greater public understanding and coexistence with beavers in an urban setting

What sets the Ealing Beaver Project apart from other similar initiatives is its community-driven and inclusive approach to urban rewilding. While most beaver reintroduction projects in the UK are tucked away in the remote countryside or on vast private estates with paid access and closing times, the Ealing Beaver Project is one of the first fully accessible enclosed beaver reintroduction sites in the UK, offering a rare opportunity for the public to observe and engage with beavers in a city environment. At the same time, it allows local communities to directly benefit from the ecological improvements that beavers bring, such as improved biodiversity, better water management, and revitalised natural spaces.

Progress so far

A family of five Eurasian beavers was introduced to Paradise Fields in Greenford, Ealing on 11th October 2023 and since then, the Ealing Beaver Project has become a flagship example of urban rewilding in London. Within days of their arrival, the beavers had already started shaping their new home, building dams, creating new waterways and pools and kickstarting the transformation of the site into a thriving wetland. To date, they have constructed seven dams across the site, holding more water on the landscape and minimising the flooding downstream during high rainfall events. Their activities have also opened up the overshaded tree canopy, creating a mosaic of habitats supporting greater biodiversity.

Beaver swimming in the lagoon by Caroline Farrow

Early results from monitoring and ecological surveys are promising: water quality sampling has shown a reduction in nutrient levels such as phosphates and nitrates, as well as total dissolved solids including pollutants and road runoff particulates, in water leaving the site compared to that entering it. Since the beavers’ arrival, the return of several species has also been recorded at Paradise Fields. Invertebrate populations have increased, especially water quality sensitive species such as freshwater shrimp, diving beetles and caddisfly larvae, which in turn has attracted two new species of bats and four new species of birds, early signs of a flourishing, interconnected system. The biodiversity benefits also extend to amphibians with an explosion in Common Frog spawning on site, thanks to the beavers’ ecosystem engineering activities.

Perhaps the most promising sign that the beavers have truly settled into their home came in the summer of 2024, when at least two new kits were born. This historical moment marked the first record of breeding beavers in urban London in centuries. While beavers went extinct in the UK 400 years ago, they likely vanished from London’s waterways even earlier. The fact that beavers were commonplace in London is preserved in the legacy they left in names like the Beverly Brook, a small river in Southwest London whose name is thought to derive from “beaver stream”. It’s the ultimate validation that the urban habitat at Paradise Fields is a suitable habitat, and that beavers and people can successfully coexist in a bustling urban landscape.

On the community engagement front, interpretative signage has been installed on the site to help visitors learn more about beaver adaptations and ecology and visitors are encouraged to log their wildlife sightings on platforms like iNaturalist, further promoting citizen science data collection. The hugely popular Guided Walks and Beaver Safaris led by members of the Ealing Beaver Project team have welcomed hundreds of visitors, offering a first-hand look at this rewilding success story. In a borough-wide naming competition, primary school pupils chose names for four of the resident beavers: “Willow” and “Woody” for the original pair introduced in 2023, and “Chompy” and “Chewbacca (Chewy)” for the kits born in 2024.

The Ealing Beaver Project leadership team also shared their urban rewilding model at the international BeaverCon conference in Colorado, and participated in knowledge exchange panel discussions and workshops. The story of the project has also been beautifully documented in the award-winning short film “Beavers in Paradise” by filmmaker Matt Brierley and commissioned by Consano Earth, which premiered to an international audience for the first time at BeaverCon. Drawing from insights gained from the conference, a pond levelling device was recently installed on-site to demonstrate how water levels can be proactively managed. The project has recently attracted significant support, including a recent grant from the HS2 Community and Environment Fund, which will be vital for enhancing public education and engagement for years to come.

One of the many dams built by the beavers on site by Abhilesh Dhawanjewar

What’s Next for the Ealing Beavers?

The project’s remarkable success has provided a powerful validation of the urban rewilding approach. As it moves towards the halfway point of its five-year license, the key priorities are

The continued monitoring of this evolving landscape.

Documenting the water quality and biodiversity improvements in the area.

Helping to design mitigation strategies that balance beaver activity with the needs of local communities and neighbouring infrastructure.

Public engagement lies at the heart of the project and this will only deepen in the years to come. The revitalisation of this urban green space, right next to a busy retail park, has fundamentally improved how visitors interact with nature. The fully publicly accessible site serves as a vital outdoor classroom, where visitors can witness the dynamism of a beaver engineered landscape first-hand. Fuelled by the recent support, plans are underway to expand educational programs for local schools and the public, demonstrating how people and wildlife can live alongside and benefit from each other in our cities.

The project team is exploring options to trap the eldest daughter, born in 2022 and introduced to Paradise Fields in 2023 for translocation to other suitable beaver projects, helping support the national effort to restore this keystone species. With the recent announcement from the UK government regarding licensing the wild release of beavers, the team is also exploring how this pilot could inform the reintroduction of free-living beavers in Greater London. While Paradise Fields remains an enclosed trial, the project has contributed valuable insights into coexistence, site suitability, and the infrastructural tweaks needed to support beavers in England in the long-term. The hope is that future generations of kits from the Paradise Fields family will be able to roam freely, improving the health of England’s river systems and wetlands.

Perhaps the most anticipated next step is one that the beavers’ meticulous activities have been preparing the site for all along: the reintroduction of water voles. Water voles are Britain’s fastest declining mammal, having lost 90% of their population since the 1970s, due to habitat degradation and fragmentation along with overshading of riparian habitat. Restoring habitats and improving our aquatic ecosystems are a necessary step towards supporting water vole populations and with the beavers’ help, we can improve the health of our wetlands making them more resilient and providing valuable habitat for other vulnerable species.

The Ealing Beaver Project is a testament to the conviction and power of community-led conservation, the profound effectiveness of nature-based solutions to urban problems and the inspiring possibility of welcoming wildlife back into our cities for the benefit of both people and nature.

Author – Abhilesh Dhawanjewar