Urban Rewilding Sessions – Large Herbivore Day

Our Lost Large Herbivores + Scrub 🦬

Our plants and trees evolved alongside large herbivores like Bison, Boar, Beavers, Elk and Aurochs – and have developed ways to cope with the pressures of living alongside such heavy-hooved, hungry creatures.

For example, Bramble and Hawthorn have sharp thorns to make sure they don’t get munched too much, and Willow produce fresh shoots quickly to compensate for not having such defences.

In Britain, whilst some species such as the Beaver are making a slow recovery from extinction, we have largely lost this important natural process – particularly in cities.

However our ecosystems still need this natural “disturbance” to grow and flourish. This is where YOU come in

What we’ll be doing

While it would be pretty exciting to see Bison and Boar roaming around City Stadium, we’ll instead be taking on the role of these lost herbivores and replicating the natural relationship which has evolved between them and our ecosystems.

We’ll be focussing on managing understorey species like Bramble and Hawthorn – to do this we’ll be using tools such as shears to “nibble” or “browse” in a naturalistic way. You might be surprised just how easy (and fun!) it is to get into the mind of a nibbling Bison, a stomping Auroch or a rootling Boar.

Instead of managing our greenspaces in a human-centred way, if we understand how our ecosystems function, we can also boost urban greenspaces for biodiversity.

We call this Urban Rewilding – by replicating lost natural processes, we can help our urban landscapes reach their maximum potential for wildlife – and have a lush day out in nature!

We’re pleased to be undertaking this approach in partnership with the Newcastle Parks & Allotments Team and the Ouseburn Trust’s Saturday volunteer sessions.

LOCATION FOR WILD OUSEBURN SESSION

Meet at 9.50am by the brightly coloured shipping container behind The Ship Inn, Stepney Bank, Ouseburn, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 2PW.

The What3Words for the meeting location is: brick.repair.frogs

From there we’ll walk to the City Stadium.

DATE + TIME

Saturday 25th October.

The session runs from 10am to 12pm. Please meet at the shipping container around 10 minutes before the start time.

HOW TO TAKE PART

Just turn up on the day! You don’t need any prior experience, and everyone is welcome.

WHAT TO BRING

All equipment and gloves will be provided.

Please wear suitable, sturdy walking shoes/ boots (AKA ‘hooves’) as we might venture we off footpaths. Be sure to wear suitable clothing, we will be going ahead rain or shine! We’d recommend bringing a drink and some snacks.

In the case of a severe weather warning the session may be cancelled, in which case we’ll update this event page.

Part of a collection of Large Herbivore events across Newcastle + Gateshead.