{"id":503066,"date":"2026-03-30T07:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T07:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/503066\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T07:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T07:52:07","slug":"dozing-dormouse-found-in-popped-helium-balloon-in-essex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/503066\/","title":{"rendered":"Dozing dormouse found in popped helium balloon in Essex"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dormice are found in Africa, Asia and Europe and are known for their long hibernation periods.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Conservationists believe dormouse populations have collapsed 70% in the last 25 years in the UK, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c5yly8j7jezo\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">becoming extinct in 14 counties<\/a>, due to habitat loss.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But the little one found in a tree hopefully has a chance of survival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Essex trust said Nicky Payne, its area officer for north west Essex, was working with volunteers when they saw the deflated helium balloon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When they removed it &#8220;they felt the torpid dormouse, who was thankfully unharmed&#8230; and relocated the little dormouse into a safe habitat&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dormice are found in Africa, Asia and Europe and are known for their long hibernation periods. Conservationists believe&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-503066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}