Explore London's Wildlife With The City's Experts

By Londonist Last edited 102 months ago
Explore London's Wildlife With The City's Experts
Cormorants sit by The O2 in Greenwich.

London is packed with creatures and plants: roughly 48% of the city is either green or covered in water. And within this second city live fish, porpoises, seals, foxes, bats, molluscs and much much more.

But Londoners have a mixed relationship with the wildlife of their city. For every story about the seal-spotting opportunities at Canary Wharf there's a call for urban foxes to be culled.

Should London’s wildlife be celebrated instead of persecuted? Aren't slowworms, kingfishers and our dodgy old pigeons and foxes Londoners too?

We'll be exploring these issues in London is Wild, an event we're organising in partnership with Conway Hall.

On 2 November hear from the urban birdwatcher David Lindo, Helen Babbs author of My Garden, the City and Me: Rooftop Adventures in the Wilds of London, the London Wildlife Trust director of conservation Mathew Frith and urban bat detective Kate Jones. They'll be talking birds and beasts, landscape and undergrowth. How much is London a green and pleasant land and how red is it in tooth and claw?

Join the discussion, share tales of your favourite London animals or just come and have a drink and engage with your inner twitcher or fox lover.

London is Wild, 2 November, doors 7.30pm . There'll be a London wildlife soundscape provided by the London Sound Survey. Tickets are £8 (£5 concessions) available online. Our first Londonist event at Conway Hall, London is Changing — which takes place on 28 September — sold out as quickly as a fox jumping on a bin bag.

Last Updated 18 September 2015