Can you help us soar towards a future where Kent’s skies are filled with red-billed choughs once more? With your support, we can make 2025 a landmark year for our chough reintroduction programme.
2025 will mark the third year of chough releases to the wild, but this will only be possible if we raise vital funds needed to support our next cohort of chough chicks. That’s why we’re asking for your support to raise £50,000 by 31 January 2025. Your donations will help to feed our next cohort of chough chicks, cover the costs of hand-rearing, and provide a safe location, away from predators and the elements, so they can begin a thriving life in the skies of Dover.
And, this December, your donation can go even further. Through our partners, GiveMatch, donations made and shared by two others between 1 and 14 December will be tripled! Imagine: a donation of £50 becomes £150, powering vital support for our chough chicks this winter so they can thrive in the wild by next summer.
Don’t miss this chance – this Christmas, you can make a huge difference for chough chicks in Kent.
Good things come in threes
Three years of releases
Three times your donation
Three people to make it happen
You can share your link anywhere, on social media, email, company intranets, public forums or even with us to share for you! It’s completely secure and if just two people donate from your link then your gift will be tripled.
Send your link to fundraising@kentwildlife.org.uk and we’ll share it far and wide!
The journey so far
In 2021, our supporters donated an amazing £60,000 to launch the Chough Restoration Project. Then, in 2023, we released the first cohort of red-billed choughs into the wild.
Over the past two years, fledged birds have been successfully released through a carefully managed programme, finding their way home to Kent’s landscape and reclaiming their place in our skies. They have reconnected with their ancestral home in Kent – even exploring the historic Dover Castle where their history has long adorned the walls.
Together, we’ve spent decades working towards a vision, one where choughs – with their vivid red beaks and unique call – once again soar over our chalk grasslands. Step by step, we restored essential chalk grassland habitat to support this, starting with Old Park Hill, safeguarding Nemo Down, extending Lydden Temple Ewell and restoring Coombe Down. These spaces are thriving again, thanks to our Wilder Grazing cattle and sheep that have helped restore natural processes and boost biodiversity. Even their dung becomes a feast for insects that chough depend on.
Why we must act now
The red-billed chough was absent from Kent for 200 years due to persecution and habitat loss. But thanks to our supporters, these striking birds returned to Kent’s skies in 2023, a symbol of hope and resilience. Now, to secure the future of these iconic species, we urgently need your support to rear the next generation of chough chicks.
These charismatic birds are more than rare treasures of legend and folklore, with roots in Kentish history that stretch back to Thomas Becket and Shakespeare’s King Lear. Choughs are powerful symbols of our county’s heritage, and their presence helps protect our future too. By feeding on parasitic insects, they contribute to the health of livestock and the resilience of our fields – an invaluable role as we face the challenges of a changing climate. In restoring chough, we’re rebalancing nature, creating a Wilder Kent that can better sustain us all.
Recovering lost species takes time, expertise through partners and dedicated supporters.
We envisage rearing chough chicks for release for another two years to establish a self-sustaining flock with enough breeding pairs to continue growing the population. After this, our work will continue to monitor the progress of red-billed choughs in Kent, and their impact on our changing landscape.
