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| The Garden Dart. Declined by 98% |
The trouble with having an interest in the natural world is that there is always bad news.
Here is some more: the charity Butterfly Conservation has issued a report on the moth population of the UK. They studied a 40 year period from 1968 to 2007 (coincidentally a time frame we the readers and writers of this blog have lived through) and not unsurprisingly found the majority of species studied have declined, some, like the Garden Dart above, by 98%.
The causes are probably habitat loss, with perhaps light pollution and of course chemical poisoning. Chris Packham is angry: 'Ultimately, the wider countryside is becoming a desert very rapidly.'
Obviously this has a huge knock-on effect on the animals that feed on moths. Packham again: "The general public's hearts are not going to be bleeding for the Double Dart moth, but they would be bleeding for all the birds that feed on its larvae."
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| The Double Dart. Declined by 98% |
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| The Least Carpet. Increased by 74,684% ! |
We're all going to hell in a handcart.
