European Wildlife Comeback Fund

Supporting wildlife comeback is one of the core objectives of Rewilding Europe’s mission. In addition to creating the right conditions for wildlife comeback to happen naturally, we take active measures such as reintroductions of keystone species and population reinforcements.

Reintroductions are complicated processes that typically face many challenges and need a long preparation time. This often makes it difficult to match the timing of when funding is available with the timing of animals release into the wild. To overcome this challenge, Rewilding Europe aims to provide immediate funding for reintroductions and population reinforcements that are ready to be executed through the European Wildlife Comeback Fund.

The unprecedented rate at which biodiversity is currently declining makes the urgent prioritisation of supporting wildlife comeback all the more critical. The good news is that quite a number of wildlife species have shown signs of recovery across Europe over the last four decades, proving that wild nature is resilient and can recover if conditions are suitable. Wildlife can return if we give it space and take measures to live alongside each other. The recovery of wildlife populations is something we need to embrace and learn from. Accelerating and widening wildlife comeback in Europe can improve the health and functionality of entire ecosystems, delivering a huge array of benefits, for nature, climate and people.

Return of the lynx

Of the four species of lynx that exist globally, two are found in Europe – the Eurasian lynx, and its cousin, the smaller, more brightly coloured Iberian lynx, which is now confined to southern Spain and Portugal.

Rewilding Europe supports the comeback of both species by creating more wild nature through natural grazing, which favours the conditions for prey species like the rabbit.

The Eurasian lynx is found as a breeding species in five of Rewilding Europe’s landscapes: the Central Apennines (Italy), Velebit Mountains (Croatia), Southern Carpathians (Romania) and (Bulgaria), as well as Swedish Lapland (Sweden) and the Oder Delta.

Although no Iberian lynx have settled in the Greater Côa Valley in northern Portugal, an animal released in 2014 in southern Spain has visited the area. The local rewilding team are working hard to create favourable conditions for the animals to recolonise the area. By introducing wild herbivores mosaic landscapes are created, favouring prey species such as European rabbit and red-legged partridge.

Help Europe’s “big cats” make a welcome recovery.

Wild and free horses

Wild horses speak to our imagination as symbols of freedom and wild spirit. Rewilding Europe is working to bring back the wild horse to where it once belonged, into the European landscapes, where it used to be a vital part of the ecosystem for hundreds of thousands of years.

The last European wild horse died as late as in 1909. Before that, wild horses roamed through most of Europe’s ecosystems; from deserts, steppes and savannahs to deep forests and high mountains. It was exterminated and domesticated by our ancestors. Therefore, even though the original wild horse is now gone, there are still millions of horses around, and some horse breeds to this day carry on most of the gene material of the original wild horse. Many of them also live a semi-wild life already, exposed to wild challenges that are step by step refining and bringing back the wild, original traits in them.

Support the return of the wild horse in Croatia, Bulgaria and Portugal.