Harvest Mice are Britain and Europe's smallest rodent, and have undergone rapid declines due to changes in land management nationwide in recent decades. They are important ecologically in the food chain as they support a whole range of other species including our rare birds of prey like Barn Owls. And because we have pushed them out of their former habitats, it's time we reinstated them as a thriving species in Ealing. The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world. If we can't even hold on to our rodents, what hope does the rest of our wildlife have?

After lots of surveying in likely locations, we believe Harvest Mice are locally extinct here due to historic habitat loss and fragmentation. But we have identified several sites with habitats suited to them in some of Ealing's green spaces that are now being managed more sympathetically for nature.

For more information on the project, do check out our webinar explaining in full detail what we have planned and why:

Harvest Mouse webinar

We are asking people to sponsor a mouse for just £10. We will be buying Harvest Mice from a responsible breeder who supplies many rewilding projects with rare and threatened native wildlife, and also setting up some small breeding colonies of our own to continue releasing mice into the wild in Ealing over the coming couple of years. Hopefully this two pronged approach will result in stable local populations of this incredibly important species again for years to come. The money will go directly to purchasing mice for mass release and for equipment, housing and food to set up our captive breeding programme. We will also spend an extra £500 on Longworth live mammal traps which will allow us to monitor small mammal populations without harming them going forward, ensuring our habitat management is successful for harvest mice and other creatures like voles and shrews to thrive.

For just £10 you can be part of this exciting urban rewilding project, and we plan to allow donors to come and be part of the releases, help out with the breeding programme as well as ongoing survey and monitoring activity. You are more than welcome to sponsor more than one mouse, please feel free, and spread the word.