Rewilding Coombeshead

10/06/2026

📣Join our team!

We're recruiting for an Animal Husbandry Assistant, especially someone with a keen interest in birds and insects 🪲🐦

This could be a dream job for someone passionate about reversing species decline and help nature recover - please share!

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Derek Gow Consultancy Animal Husbandry Assistant Vacancy

Full time - 40 hour week
Salary - £26,500 depending on experience

We’re looking for a husbandry team member who will be working with a range of
British and European animals. Including but not limited to water voles, Scottish
wildcats, white storks and glow-worms.

This role will include day to day husbandry of the animals as well as general
maintenance and upkeep of the site and enclosures.

This role will be based on our site at Lifton, Devon. With some work travel across the country to further expand your experience and knowledge.

Requirements:
* Full UK driving license
* Experience with birds or insects
* Weekend availability
* Happy to work in all weather conditions
* Good physical fitness levels are required for a manual outside job

Please apply to Jenny on [email protected]
With your CV by the 30th June 2026

08/06/2026

The Derek vs Derek film release is just around the corner, and we're very excited!

It's a great chance for us to showcase what Derek and the team have been 'beavering away'(!) at over the last few years at Coombeshead, and we're looking forward to welcoming supporters of the film to visit us, spend time close to nature, and enjoy 🦫

08/06/2026

This June is the National Festival of Fieldwork! 🌿

Check out this superb investigation by student fieldworkers from Mount Kelly School who joined Tom to survey some of our streams at Coombeshead.

🧔Tom shares "Together we measured river profile characteristics such as bank width and depth, along with wetted perimeter and bedload roundness. A floating carrot cast downstream gave an idea of surface velocity. My thanks to my water vole colleagues who donated one of their beloved carrot snacks for us to use." 🥕

For all and fieldwork enquiries, get in touch with Tom: https://rewildingcoombeshead.co.uk/educational-visits/

Festival of Fieldwork: https://geography.org.uk/national-fieldwork/

Geographical AssociationInstitute for Outdoor Learning

04/06/2026

Did anyone spot some Coombeshead voles on ITV news this week?

Our fantastic animal husbandry team have been busy working alongside fellow partners including National Trust’s South Downs countryside team, the Environment Agency, the River Wey Trust, and the South East Rivers Trust to release hundreds of water voles into the River Wey catchment. Great work! 👏

Consider becoming a 'Keep it Wild' member and support our species recovery projects: https://keepitwild.uk/membership/

300 water voles have been reintroduced into the River Wey in Surrey to help restore the species.
https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2026-06-02/300-water-voles-released-back-into-river-wey-in-surrey

01/06/2026

A tribe of students from Clawton Primary School went on a Celtic adventure this Spring, transported back in time building dens in the heart of our rewilding area surrounded by ancient wildlife.

If you'd like to bring your class or youth group on a wildlife adventure, get in touch: https://rewildingcoombeshead.co.uk/educational-visits/

31/05/2026

The team from carried out the first of many Harvest Mice releases this summer. Here fifty mice are being released in Devon. This time the team from spring watch is filming us, so you may see more details of this on TV in the near future.

We hope to release 800 mice this year at various sites across the UK

You can support us to release more mice and other species by becoming a member, please go to
https://keepitwild.uk/membership/

Members receive discounts and monthly newsletters and can be sure that they are supporting biodiversity recovery in the UK.

30/05/2026

Frances Gynn is a highly respected Devon artist, her work is inspired by urgent environmental issues. At this years If Not Now, When festival Frances will be performing a live artistic event to complement our incredible line up of environmental speakers. This is our fourth year of sharing quality information about rewilding, in an informal atmosphere with tours, great food and music.
For tickets go to
https://keepitwild.uk/if-not-now-when-2026/

We’ll be tackling thorny issues, facilitating much needed conversations, raising the bar on nature recovery.
Building on the strengths of previous years rewilding events at Rewilding Coombeshead, home of author and reintroduction specialist Derek Gow, If Not Now When 2026 promises a weekend packed with big hitters in the nature recovery scene. A high profile list of authors and rewilders Visionaries, sharing their own lived experience. There’s a packed agenda for those with a thirst for first hand knowledge, practical application of real world projects, each helping us all to paint a picture of possibility for a brighter future here in the UK.
Confirmed speakers:
David Satori – Charismatic Megafunga: A foray through the world of fungal conservation
Sam Manning – Flowscape: The hidden connections between oceans and forests
Paul Whitfield – The Future of Bison Rewilding in the UK
Marc Wilbers – Wolf, co-existence, polarisation
John Walters – Conservation of the Blue Ground Beetle and other invertebrates
Tom Bowser – Waters of Life: Fighting for Scotland’s Beavers
Frances Gynn – Public Erasure (species TBC)
Hugh Warwick – Cull of the Wild – Killing in the Name of Conservation
Chantal Lyons – Mega fauna and marine conservation expert
Siobhan Lewis – Update on The Great Bustard Group: Reintroducing the Great Bustard to Britain
See you there.

27/05/2026

It was great to have students and staff from Mount Kelly visit us at Coombeshead last week.

Yr3 & Yr4 joined Tom and Kimberley on a journey through time to become ancient celts in a wild Dumnonia, and Mount Kelly teachers and staff returned to watch beavers at sunset with Tay and Tom 🦫

If you'd like to bring your school or youth group on a field trip to us, get in touch: https://rewildingcoombeshead.co.uk/educational-visits/

26/05/2026

We’re reading 32°C at Coombeshead today, and we’re staying cool down at the beaver lodges with visiting students from University of Exeter 🦫

If you'd like to bring your class or youth group on a field trip to us, get in touch: https://rewildingcoombeshead.co.uk/educational-visits/