Dutch study confirms that insect numbers have plummeted over the last 30 years

Biologists at Wageningen University in the Netherlands enlisted the help of 250 drivers for a "splash teller" study. Each motorist had to wipe his or her car license plate clean then tot up the bug body count at the end of their drive. The scientific study was inspired by a similar project in the United Kingdom, carried out in 2004, and the results of the Dutch study were similar to those of the British study. In the UK-wide Big Bug Count held throughout June 2004, nearly 40,000 conservation-minded drivers counted the bugs splattered on their vehicle number plates. Using a cardboard counting-grid dubbed the "splatometer", they recorded an average of only one squashed insect every five miles, whereas in the summers of 30-odd years ago, car bonnets and windscreens would quickly become encrusted with tiny bodies. The Dutch study recorded an average of only one squashed insect every five kilometers.

Sources:
Reuters, 12 July 2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/12/us-dutch-insects-idUSTRE76B4Y…
Nu, 15 July 2011
http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/2561424/twee-dode-insecten-per-10-kilometer…