{"id":544301,"date":"2026-04-22T08:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T08:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/544301\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T08:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T08:19:08","slug":"conservation-project-to-protect-lost-spider-gets-funding-boost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/544301\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservation project to protect &#8216;lost&#8217; spider gets funding boost"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The charity said future plans included genetic analysis to trace the spider&#8217;s origins and surveys of nearby heathlands in Sherwood Forest to find potential new sites.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Surveys are also due to be carried out at Ashdown Forest in Sussex, where the spider was last recorded in 1969, to find a possible hidden or missed population.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gareth Jones, lead ranger at Clumber Park, said the funding would allow the project to move &#8220;from discovery to recovery&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;By understanding what this species needs, we can create the right conditions for it to grow and thrive. Not just here, but potentially beyond Clumber,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jones added that spiders play a &#8220;vital ecological role&#8221; as natural pest controllers and help maintain balanced ecosystems.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dr Helen Smith, from the British Arachnological Society, said: &#8220;We have too many critically endangered species in Britain but the future of this smart little spider, apparently restricted to a tiny pocket of heathland in Clumber Park, could not be more precarious.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This support gives us renewed hope of finding ways to secure its future, not just at Clumber but more widely on heathland in Nottinghamshire and further afield.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The charity said future plans included genetic analysis to trace the spider&#8217;s origins and surveys of nearby heathlands&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-544301","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\/544301","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=544301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}