{"id":604218,"date":"2026-08-25T14:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T14:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/604218\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T14:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T14:36:11","slug":"dorchester-duck-patrol-plea-after-mindless-catapult-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/604218\/","title":{"rendered":"Dorchester duck patrol plea after &#8216;mindless&#8217; catapult attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Volunteers are stepping up patrols on a stretch of river after further attacks on wildlife.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Residents in Dorchester, Dorset, reported ducks being attacked with catapults on the River Frome and pigeons being targeted in the town centre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Following a spate of similar incidents in the spring, Gillian May set up Dorchester Duck Patrol and she is now appealing for more people to help.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dorset Police thanked members of the public who had reported concerns, saying officers had been handed &#8220;clear footage&#8221; of young people believed to be involved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">May said residents had reported a new &#8220;spate of attacks&#8230; resulting in needless pain and death of our beloved ducks&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She said volunteers had come from as far as Weymouth to help patrol the river.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;So grateful to think someone will travel the distance to help our Dorchester ducks,&#8221; she said in a Facebook post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Volunteers are stepping up patrols on a stretch of river after further attacks on wildlife. Residents in Dorchester,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-604218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}