This city had a flooding problem. So it turned to an animal that had been extinct there for 400 years

A few hundred feet from a McDonald’s and a strip mall, sandwiched between busy and polluted roads, a lush urban wetland is being built by an unusual and furry group of city residents: beavers.

This corner of Ealing, a borough in West London, used to flood regularly during heavy rainstorms, with water sweeping into local streets and inundating the nearby Greenford tube station, part of the London Underground.

To alleviate the problem, local authorities had considered a traditional engineering project, carving out an artificial reservoir using heavy machines and concrete. But then, a group of local conservationists had a different idea.

“Why don’t we try a nature-based solution?” said Sean McCormack, a veterinarian, wildlife conservationist and project leader at the Ealing Beaver Project. “Why don’t we bring back beavers?”

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