Populations have fallen by 48 per cent overall with the worst affected species – the white-letter hairstreak – down by 96 per cent. Conservationists say the decline is down to intensive farming practices and fewer wild flowers in the countryside. The survey, carried out for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), examined two classes of butterfly – those that are specific to a particular terrain and those that dwell in the wider countryside, farmland or gardens. Habitat specialists were down 61 per cent, while the latter group fell 41 per cent – an overall drop of almost 50 per cent. The figures do not include migrant species. The survey also found that since 1990, numbers of woodland species have fallen by 51 per cent, reaching a historical low in 2012. Species in severe decline include the brown argus, common blue, gatekeeper, holly blue, and the marbled white.
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Fiddling while Rome burns
Britain's butterfly populations have fallen by 48 per cent overall since 1976 with the worst affected species – the white-letter hairstreak – down by 96 per cent. By 2013, the UK breeding farmland bird index had fallen by 55 per cent to a level less than half that of 1970. Four farmland specialists (grey partridge (Perdix perdix), turtle dove (Streptopelia turtur), tree sparrow (Passer montanus) and corn bunting (Miliaria calandra)) have declined by over 85 per cent relative to 1970 levels. It is clear that something is terribly wrong with the environment, but the word 'pesticides' is avoided at all costs, in spite of compelling evidence indicating that the widespread use of neonicotinoid insecticides is decimating invertebrates. Instead we are made to believe it’s all down to ‘mild, wet, winters’ - which the UK, a narrow island in the North Atlantic, has never experienced until the last 40 years. Bullshit.