Thread by @thetimes

Many years ago they vanished from our shores.

Now there is renewed hope for four species whose benefits range from fortifying river banks and keeping problematic populations under control to creating new habitats for others 🧵👇
thetimes.co.uk/article/the-lo…

🦫 Beaver

Beavers are what is known as a keystone species, they play an outsized role in shaping the environment around them and they can be pivotal to ecosystem restoration.

As soon as they arrive on a river bank, they begin to engineer it, felling trees to build their dams

Beaver damns create habitats for a plethora of other species.
🐞🐸🐟 Insects, amphibians and fish thrive in the waters behind their dams, providing food for 🐦.
🦇 swoop into the gaps that felled trees open up in the foliage and eating the insects that spawn in their ponds

🦫 were reintroduced in Scotland in 2009.

In England, however, their reintroduction has been stalled by the fact that they are not designated as a native species, which means they can be released only into fenced enclosures.

This is about to change

The government is expected this year to fulfil its pledge to designate them a native species in England. It has run a public consultation on what guidelines it should set for how to introduce them to the wild

🐾 Lynx

Such support has been less forthcoming, however, to those trying to reintroduce the lynx.

Lynx could be beneficial in helping the Scottish Highlands' forests grow anew, by controlling the ballooning deer population and stopping it from eating every sapling

🐾 Although lynx do sometimes kill sheep, unlike wolves they are loath to venture into farmland.
For this reason, Steve Micklewright, chief executive of @treesforlifeuk, thinks that with careful understanding they have a good chance of being reintroduced to Britain

White-tailed eagle 🦅

The white-tailed eagle returned to 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 in 2019, when the @RoyDennisWF, in partnership with Forestry England, released six birds on the Isle of Wight.
They have released 19 more birds since then and plan to release a total of 60

The return of Britain’s biggest bird of prey will have a positive impact on their ecosystem. By preying on meso-predators such as foxes and crows, the eagles will reduce pressure on ground-nesting birds such as woodcocks and curlews

Bison 🦬

Bison have not roamed Britain freely for 6,000 years.
In May, though, post-Brexit red tape notwithstanding, four of these shaggy giants will find a new home in West Blean Woods nature reserve in Kent

🦬 “Bison are what we call ecosystem engineers,” says Mark Habben, head of living collections at the @WildwoodTrust.
🗣️“They’re a really large, powerful animal, the benefits of which are seen through a lot of their behaviours”

By eating bark and rubbing up against trunks to remove excess coat, bison kill off selected trees — often non-native species — providing dead wood for insects to eat and inhabit, and clearing areas to allow more light into the undergrowth, helping smaller species thrive

The reintroduction of vanished species is not on its own enough to rebalance ecosystems but it is just one among many interventions that rewilders make to return landscapes to health.

🗣️“Rewilding is a marathon, but it starts with a sprint,” says Alastair Driver of @RewildingB

Read the full story 👇
thetimes.co.uk/article/the-lo…