{"id":762798,"date":"2026-09-07T11:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T11:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762798\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T11:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T11:10:09","slug":"turtle-doves-released-in-south-downs-in-bid-to-stop-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762798\/","title":{"rendered":"Turtle doves released in South Downs in bid to stop extinction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Conservationists have released more than two dozen turtle doves in the South Downs National Park in a bid to help the species, which is on the brink of extinction in the UK, to recover.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The dove, famous for its place in the Twelve Days of Christmas song, is the country&#8217;s fastest declining bird species according to the RSPB.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In an attempt to boost population numbers, the national park authority released 30 birds in the Selborne area of Hampshire this spring.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The authority said the plan was part of &#8220;urgent efforts&#8221; to restore the species, with a further 100 doves being prepared for another release next year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We all know the turtle dove from the festive carol, but the truth is they are now far too rare for such a Christmas gift,&#8221; park ranger Paul Bushell said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He explained the birds were now &#8220;one of the fastest-declining bird species in Europe&#8221;,  with numbers plummeting by 98% in the UK between the late 1960s and 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conservationists have released more than two dozen turtle doves in the South Downs National Park in a bid&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-762798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762798","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=762798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}