{"id":798047,"date":"2026-10-10T11:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T11:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/798047\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T11:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T11:50:11","slug":"little-tern-comeback-colony-in-dorset-hit-by-fox-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/798047\/","title":{"rendered":"Little tern comeback colony in Dorset hit by fox attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Attacks by predators have hit years of slow recovery for the last little tern colony in the south-west of England, conservationists have said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sixty-six breeding pairs were recorded at Chesil Beach in Dorset this year, which was the highest number since 2001, the RSPB reported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, the colony was targeted by a fox which probably got through a defective fence, the charity added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It said: &#8220;Thankfully, some of these small yet incredibly resilient seabirds went on to have second broods and fledged around 20-25 chicks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Little terns are the second-rarest breeding seabird in the UK and Ireland, according to the RSPB.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, numbers have declined by 39% since the 1980s, the charity said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Chesil Little Tern Recovery Project recorded 11 more breeding pairs this year than in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, the RSPB said: &#8220;Sadly, the colony did experience a predation event.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This was very upsetting for our dedicated staff and volunteers who work tirelessly to protect the colony.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attacks by predators have hit years of slow recovery for the last little tern colony in the south-west&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-798047","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\/798047","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=798047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}