2025 was a landmark year for the European Wildlife Comeback Fund, demonstrating just how much this flexible funding approach can achieve in scaling up wildlife reintroductions across Europe.
Funding the return of keystone species
Launched by Rewilding Europe in 2022, the European Wildlife Comeback Fund (EWCF) was created to scale up wildlife reintroductions of keystone species across Europe, delivering lasting benefits for ecosystems, climate resilience, and local communities. Last year brought significant progress, with numerous species supported in their recovery in landscapes where they had long been absent or present in very low numbers.
Wildlife reintroductions are inherently complex, and timing is rarely predictable – sourcing animals can involve long delays, only for everything to move quickly once animals becomes available. This makes adaptable and responsive funding a valuable tool. The EWCF is designed to meet precisely this challenge, providing the type of support required to turn ambition into lasting wildlife recovery across the continent. “The Fund is a flexible tool that supports the last steps of translocations,” says Rewilding Europe’s Rewilding Landscapes Manager, Sophie Monsarrat. “With our support, we target situations where we will have the biggest impact for wilder nature through the introduction of keystone species.”
While the comeback of animals like European bison has become an iconic example of rewilding in action, it’s their ecological role – not size alone – that defines a keystone species. From vultures and hamsters to Tauros, horses, and trout, it is the disproportionate impact these species have on their habitat that makes them vital to ecosystems across Europe. The EWCF supports a diverse range of wildlife comebacks, driving rewilding forward across the continent.
In 2025, the EWCF supported 23 reintroduction initiatives across Europe, covering 19 species across nine countries. Since its launch, the Fund has committed more than €3 million to wildlife recovery, with nearly €1 million allocated in 2025 alone. The stories below offer a selection of 2025’s many highlights.
European bison
Whilst bison have made a remarkable comeback from the brink of extinction, it is their extraordinary impact on the landscape that is now the focus of rewilding efforts. Through grazing, browsing, and trampling, bison open up dense vegetation to create a mosaic of meadow and woodland. Their presence also contributes to nutrient cycling and soil fertility, while helping to sequester significant amounts of carbon.
In 2025, Rewilding Europe supported four bison translocations through the EWCF, in Spain, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and Azerbaijan, resulting in a total of 39 bison being released. Led by Rewilding Spain, the release of nine bison into a 400-hectare public woodland in the Iberian Highlands, was warmly welcomed by the El Recuenco council and its residents. For the local community, bison represent a transformative addition to the landscape, helping to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires while generating new opportunities, jobs, and income.
In the Rhodope Mountains of Bulgaria, free-roaming bison have been present since 2019, with recent efforts focusing on expanding their range to a 3,800-hectare site called Zhenda. With support from the EWCF, eight bison were released here by Rewilding Rhodopes, with the aim of growing the population to at least 50. Further grants were used in the Dutch Maashorst, Veluwe, and Kraansvlak nature reserves, where four bison bulls were brought from Poland by PWN and FREE Nature to help improve the genetic diversity of the existing herds. EWCF funding also supported the latest chapter in Azerbaijan’s bison comeback, led by Tierpark Berlin and WWF Azerbaijan. 18 bison were released in early 2026, bringing the total population in Shahdag National Park to around 90 animals, over a century after the species vanished from the region.
Cinereous vulture
Vultures are nature’s clean-up crew, playing an irreplaceable role in the Circle of Life. As Europe’s largest vulture, the cinereous vulture specialises in opening up large carcasses. This grants access to a wide range of other scavengers and decomposers, from foxes and other vulture species to insects and microbes. Together, they effectively return nutrients back into local ecosystems, all while reducing the risk of disease spreading to wildlife, livestock, and people.
Once ranging from Portugal to the Mongolian steppe, the majority of cinereous vultures today reside in Spain. This makes the health and viability of these populations critical for enabling future reintroductions across Europe. In 2025, the EWCF supported GREFA in releasing ten cinereous vultures in Els Ports, and a further six in Sierra de la Demanda. Beyond bolstering local populations, these releases serve a wider purpose: through Rewilding Europe’s partnership with GREFA, the Iberian peninsula is becoming a launchpad for future reintroduction initiatives, including those in the Rhodope Mountains and the Central Apennines.
European hamster
Despite their small size, European hamsters punch well above their weight in steppe restoration. They improve soil fertility and help disperse seeds across the steppe, whilst their burrows create habitats for many other species. Hamsters are also important prey for a range of birds and mammals – a vital thread in the food web of a wilder steppe.
100 European hamsters were released in 2025 onto the Tarutino Steppe in southwestern Ukraine, building on Rewilding Ukraine‘s ongoing reintroduction programme. This marks the largest single release since the programme began in 2022, bringing the total number released on the steppe to nearly 130. The Tarutino Steppe is one of the best examples of intact European steppe remaining, and the hamster reintroduction, alongside the return of kulan, fallow deer, and steppe marmot, sits within a broader effort to restore the ecosystem’s natural processes.
Tauros and horses
Historically, large herbivores such as aurochs and wild horses maintained semi-open woodlands across Europe, creating diverse habitats through their grazing, browsing, and trampling. With most of these species long gone, restoring functionally similar animals brings back these dynamics: acting as natural fire brigades, driving natural regeneration, enhancing biodiversity, and boosting carbon storage. As one of the most cost-effective nature-based solutions available, scaling up natural grazing is becoming increasingly urgent, particularly across Mediterranean landscapes where the threat of extreme wildfires continues to grow.
The EWCF supported Rewilding Portugal with the release of 21 Tauros and 14 semi-wild horses in Ermo das Águias, a rewilding site in Portugal’s Greater Côa Valley, and Fundació Miranda with the release of six semi-wild horses in the Garraf Natural Park near Barcelona. Perhaps most notably, Rewilding Spain, in collaboration with the regional Castilla-La Mancha government, celebrated a milestone moment with the introduction of six Przewalski’s horses to the La Campana Estate – the first to be released within a protected area of the Iberian Highlands.
Brown trout
Brown trout play an influential role as both predator and prey; however their importance extends further still. Freshwater pearl mussel larvae harmlessly attach themselves to trout gills to migrate upstream. Once established upstream, the mussels filter and improve water quality for other aquatic species. In this way, the two species are deeply intertwined. If trout disappear from a river, mussels can no longer reproduce and eventually vanish too. Restoring brown trout populations sends ripples of recovery across entire aquatic ecosystems.
In 2025, the EWCF supported the release of approximately 250,000 brown trout fry into three tributaries of the Rickleå river system in northern Sweden, in partnership with Rewilding Sweden and the municipality of Skellefteå. This builds on an initial release the previous year, marking an important next step in the long-term commitment that lasting wildlife recovery demands. These efforts are part of a broader river restoration initiative in which boulders, gravel, and sand have been returned to waterways canalised by decades of industrial timber floating. As trout populations recover, it is hoped that the pearl mussels will naturally recolonise as well.
Why wildlife comeback matters
The benefits of scaling up wildlife comeback extend well beyond nature itself. Research published in Nature Climate Change demonstrates that recovering wildlife populations could play a critical role in keeping global temperatures below the 1.5°C threshold, with reintroductions central to helping accelerate and scale these benefits. By restoring the health and functionality of entire ecosystems, wildlife comeback enables nature to play its full role in the global carbon cycle once again. It is through the reintroduction of keystone species that this knowledge is being turned into action.
The work of the EWCF sits squarely within this larger context, but its impact depends on sustained support. As Sophie Monsarrat reflects: “The fund makes a real difference by providing the support where it is needed most – something made possible only by generous donations. We are proud of the role it has played since its launch in 2022 in scaling up reinforcements and reintroductions across Europe. The return of wild species requires long‑term commitments to deliver impacts that span into the future.”
Call to action
Delivering a wildlife reintroduction from start to finish is no easy task. Timing is everything, and funding doesn’t always align with the moment animals are ready to be released. Rewilding Europe recognises this and developed the EWCF to turn viable wildlife comeback plans into reality.
The EWCF is open to applications from organisations working on keystone species reintroductions across Europe. Funding is flexible and responsive, and applicants are encouraged to think ambitiously about the scale of their releases, because lasting wildlife recovery depends on populations that can ultimately sustain themselves without further intervention.
If your organisation is working toward such a goal, we encourage you to consider applying for a grant. And if you are looking to support nature’s recovery across Europe, the European Wildlife Comeback Fund offers a way to be part of this effort: discover the options for funding, partnership, or donation via our support page.
The European Wildlife Comeback Fund has been made possible through the financial support of Arcadia, EnviroSustain, the Ecological Restoration Fund, the Nationale Postcode Loterij, and private donations.
