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"If someone had told me when I first moved here," says David Attenborough in his recent Wild London documentary, "that one day I would be watching wild beavers in London I would have thought they were mad."
While beavers vanished from the UK wild some 400 years ago, in recent times they've been successfully reintroduced to parts of the country, including, in 2023 Paradise Fields in Greenford — the location Attenborough visited for his programme.
Last year it was announced that beavers will set up home in Eastbrookend Country Park in Dagenham.
Now, reports East Croydon Cool, the rewilding experts behind Ealing's success, Citizen Zoo, are working with Croydon Council to see if it's viable to introduce a family of beavers to the waters of South Norwood Country Park. The plan would be to create the largest beaver enclosure in London, as well as reopening the park's visitor centre, which has been shuttered since a fire in 2020.
Says Elliot Newton, Director of Rewilding at Citizen Zoo: "Upon visiting South Norwood Country Park, we were immediately struck by its potential; the site bears a remarkable resemblance to Paradise Fields, and we see a unique opportunity to strengthen ecological resilience whilst deeply engaging the local community."
However, the project is not a done deal. "Before the beavers set foot, or paw, in Croydon," says Croydon Council, "Citizen Zoo have put forward funding and begun an in-depth feasibility study to determine whether the habitat is suitable."
Meanwhile a public consultation — alongside community talks and local nature walks — is scheduled for February.
The presence of beavers in urban areas can have many positive impacts: improving water quality, mitigating flooding, and boosting biodiversity for fish, insects, birds and other mammals. Their novelty also has the secondary effect of getting more people interested in their local environment, which can only be a good thing.
