Wildlife Group Plans To Release Beavers To Revive Surrey Wetlands

Published on: 15 Apr, 2025
Updated on: 16 Apr, 2025

Releasing beavers into the wild will bring huge conservation benefits, says Surrey Wildlife Trust

By David Reading

Conservationists have launched a major project to release beavers into the wild in Surrey.

Surrey Wildlife Trust (SWT) believes bringing back this long-lost native species could revive wetland habitats for plants and animals on a large scale.

The SWT is asking people to back the project with donations, saying: “This could see beavers – nature’s top engineers – transform Surrey’s best-loved habitats into oases bursting with  life.”

Conservationists at the Trust hope to use Eurasian beavers, which once thrived throughout the UK but were hunted to extinction some 400 years ago, to re-wet areas of habitat in Surrey, enabling them to reach their full potential as homes for nature.

As they consider a licence to release Beavers, they must conduct studies to fully assess the potential effectiveness and impact of the animals on Trust reserves.

From April 22-29, all donations to enable this research to go ahead will be match-funded to a total value of £50,000 by the Green Match Fund, a group of philanthropists who support ideas to protect the environment.

This appeal is part of the Trust’s £1m “Save Surrey’s Nature” campaign, which has so far raised almost £400,000 to help fight back against the destruction of nature.

The SWT says evidence shows that rewetting habitats by creating ponds, ditches and marshy areas and allowing natural watercourses to develop through creating dams delivers benefits including:

• Carbon sequestration – wetlands, particularly where they sit on reserves of peat, are hugely effective ‘carbon sinks’, helping reduce the impacts of climate change.
• Flood alleviation – creating habitats that can hold back or absorb water significantly reduces run-off in times of high rainfall, thus reducing damage to habitats, property and infrastructure.
• Wildfire prevention and containment – fires cannot spread where there are bodies of water to stop them.
• Creation of habitat – to benefit a huge range of native plant and animal species, including species that are currently locally extinct.

The SWT says it is helping to deliver the national and international goal of protecting 30 per cent of land and sea for nature. In support of this vital objective, they say, beavers could be key to restoring and extending Surrey’s wet habitats – as they have started to do in parts of the UK, including Devon.

Eight of the animals are reported to have saved Czech taxpayers at least a million Euros by flooding a protected former army training site where a long-delayed dam was planned.

A law change may enable Eurasian beavers to be legally released into the wild as early as this year

The SWT says beavers’ habit of creating dams and felling some bankside trees creates natural bodies of water of varying sizes and depths that can then benefit nature with minimum investment and interference from people.

SWT Conservation Manager Adam Bolton says:

“We’re asking people to help us put nature’s top engineers back at the heart of our landscapes, to help shape them for the better. Given the essential services that nature provides, from flood prevention to carbon sequestration to better health and wellbeing, that would be something for everyone to celebrate.”

The beavers would need to be carefully introduced – so the first phase of the project is to deploy expert advisors as well as the Trust’s own land management team and local stakeholders to establish how to proceed.

Donations are initially being sought to support a detailed feasibility study into the Beaver reintroductions, and where it would be best to consider these first; and to enable an assessment of other habitat engineering options, using mechanical or manual methods for rewetting habitats.

The government recently announced that it will change the law to enable Eurasian beavers to be legally released into the wild as early as this year.

In addition to European beavers, the SWT plans to explore the feasibility of introducing other species to enhance the lowland heath habitat.

Candidates include the large marsh grasshopper, red deer and the red-backed shrike

Share This Post