Species Recovery Programme awards multi-million-pound grants to projects across England, helping species like godwits, choughs and crayfish.

Yesterday (14 September), 63 native species projects have been granted a total of £14.5 million from Natural England in the Species Recovery Programme Grant Scheme. Some of England’s most threatened species, from butterflies to bats, will be supported by these massive grants.

Among the organisations awarded grants are the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) for their ‘Godwit Futures’ project on the Black-tailed godwit. This project will establish their future with captive breeding populations, which will then be used to supply these birds for translocation. WWT will rear and release twenty godwit fledglings in 2024.

Wildwood Trust was awarded two grants – one for their ‘Kentish Cough Reintroduction’ and another for ‘Saving Devon’s Native Crayfish.’ Returning choughs to the wild in Kent is the accumulation of over four decades of work and a population of 20-35 choughs are planned to be released to re-establish the core population.

The white-clawed crayfish project aims to safeguard the survival of this species which has suffered as a result of invasive species. Wildwood Trust are creating a sustainable hatchery to house their captive breeding programme – including the construction of a new protected ark site, and a public education display at Wildwood Devon.

We can’t wait to see these projects, among the others, come into fruition for the support and awareness of our precious native species.

You can see the full list of the 63 projects here.