{"id":637121,"date":"2026-10-21T07:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T07:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/637121\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T07:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T07:16:09","slug":"wimpole-estate-records-abundance-of-wildlife-despite-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/637121\/","title":{"rendered":"Wimpole Estate records &#8216;abundance&#8217; of wildlife despite drought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A country house and farming estate in one of England&#8217;s driest and most nature-depleted areas has an &#8220;abundance&#8221; of wildlife with more than 5,000 species recorded, the National Trust has said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Rare species, including barbastelle bats, great crested newts and corn buntings, have been spotted at the Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire in the last six years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">General manager David Hassall said the number was &#8220;remarkable in any landscape, but particularly here in Cambridgeshire, where wildlife is facing the combined pressures of habitat loss and increasingly hot, dry conditions&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The government said the East was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/dry-weather-and-drought-in-england-2026-summary-reports\/dry-weather-and-drought-in-england-31-july-to-6-august-2026\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">one of seven UK areas in drought, external<\/a>, with hosepipe bans in force across parts of the region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The charity said 5,242 species were recorded across the estate&#8217;s parkland, farmland, woodland and wetlands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hassall said the number &#8220;reflects five decades of careful stewardship and shows that nature can flourish alongside farming, public access and heritage conservation&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A country house and farming estate in one of England&#8217;s driest and most nature-depleted areas has an &#8220;abundance&#8221;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-637121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}