{"id":820584,"date":"2026-11-01T08:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T08:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/820584\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T08:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T08:46:09","slug":"rare-damselfly-spotted-by-restored-chalk-river-near-hertford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/820584\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare damselfly spotted by restored chalk river near Hertford"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The River Ash is one of about 260 chalk rivers in the world, and the restoration project has included the creation of new gravel beds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The trust said brown trout were already spawning on them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In addition, monitoring carried out before and after the restoration found an increase in river invertebrates, including mayflies and stoneflies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sarah Perry, rivers recovery manager at the trust said: &#8220;Natural rivers, connected floodplains and healthy wetlands support biodiversity by providing places for wildlife to feed and breed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;They also help water move through the landscape and can contribute to resilience against both flooding and drought.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The scarce blue-tailed damselfly sightings along the River Ash offer a hopeful example of what these efforts can achieve.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Do you have a story suggestion for Beds, Herts or Bucks? Contact us below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The River Ash is one of about 260 chalk rivers in the world, and the restoration project has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-820584","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\/820584","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=820584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}