SPECIES

The great Wildwoods of old were alive with beasts and birds. Once, brown bears slumbered through the frosty winters, lynx slinked through the woods, wild boars snuffled in the undergrowth, and wolves howled at the moon. Great aurochs lumbered over the land, white-tailed eagles dived for fish, snow-white hares raced over the hills and goshawks watched the forest with their fiery eyes. Today, tragically, many of these fantastic creatures are facing extinction or are missing from our countryside altogether, ghosts beyond living memory, found only in books or overseas. Our lives are the poorer for the loss of so many of our native species and, as they fade from our consciousness, many people aren’t even aware of what they’re missing.

Cambrian Wildwood has a vision of restoring this wildness to our landscape and returning some of our lost creatures to the landscape. We want to create a haven for creatures of all shapes and sizes. For those species still present but with ever-dwindling numbers, we want to create a wild space where wildlife can flourish. For those we have lost, we want to explore the possibility of bringing them back. We want to see red squirrels chattering in the trees, beavers building dams in the streams, water voles gambolling in the rivers, the white flash of a pine marten’s bib as it scampers through the undergrowth.

While we will not see species such as bears, wolves and lynx for the foreseeable future, there is a wealth of animals that could reasonably be reintroduced to Wales, helping us find enchantment in the wild and improving our impoverished species range for the generations to come.