{"id":684684,"date":"2026-07-10T18:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T18:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/684684\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T18:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T18:26:08","slug":"strangford-lough-dolphins-squiggle-and-squashy-key-part-of-ecosystem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/684684\/","title":{"rendered":"Strangford Lough: Dolphins Squiggle and Squashy key part of ecosystem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dr Gavin Grant, AONB and Geopark marine and coastal engagement officer, said that most visitors to the lough love seeing Squiggle and Squashy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;They are what scientists call &#8216;charismatic megafauna&#8217;, basically large animals that are widely popular and mean many things to many people,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, he added that it was important that people show them the respect they deserve.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We would encourage everyone to keep their distance when possible, ideally over 100m away, and let any interactions be on the animals&#8217; terms, never chasing, feeding or touching them,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It is also not safe for people in the water with them, given their size {2.5-4m long} and the fact they are large marine predators.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr Gavin Grant, AONB and Geopark marine and coastal engagement officer, said that most visitors to the lough&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-684684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684684","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=684684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}