Staff Writer
As the largest annual survey of the increasingly endangered pollinating insects returns, wildlife enthusiasts are being urged to report sightings of butterflies and some moths across Britain.
Conservationists may assess the condition of the nation’s natural environment thanks to the annual “Big Butterfly Count” in the UK, which takes place between July 14 and August 6. There is growing evidence that the environment is becoming more and more endangered.
Using a smartphone app and other internet resources, volunteers record their butterfly sightings in gardens, parks, and other locations after downloading a chart that will help them identify the various species.
As a result of their inability to adapt to tremendous environmental change, experts have warned that Britain’s population of these frequently vividly colored winged insects is rapidly declining.
“It’s a pretty worrying picture,” said Richard Fox, the charity’s head of science, to AFP at Orley Common, a sizable park in Devon, southwest England, which coordinates the nationwide citizen-led study.
Even though the area provides an excellent environment for butterflies, it is seeing fewer of them. “The major causes of the decline are what we humans have done to the landscape in the UK over the past 50, 60, and 70 years,” he said from the location.
According to a research Fox co-authored this year and based on 23 million data points, four out of every five butterfly species in the UK are found there.
A “red list” for environmental protection classifies 50 percent of the 58 species that exist in the nation as threatened.
AKA “citizen scientists”
According to a 2021 UK parliament report, the UK has lost about half of its biodiversity over the past few decades, making it one of the countries with the most depleted natural resources in the world.
Part of the responsibility is placed on agriculture, which uses fertilizers and pesticides and alters the terrain by removing hedgerows to increase the amount of space available for producing crops.
The alarming trend has been followed by counting butterflies, which are among the most frequently observed insects worldwide.
Volunteers have been helping out since the 1970s, but recording is more popular than ever today, in part because of technological advancement.
The Big Butterfly Count, which was established in 2010, claims to be the largest.
Last year, more than 64,000 “citizen scientists” took part, recording 96,257 counts of day-flying moths and butterflies from all around Britain.
An iRecord Butterflies app was created by Butterfly Conservation and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology to assist in identifying and geolocating occurrences of various butterfly species.
Since its debut in 2014, it has received approximately a million submissions.
Conservationists point out that because butterflies respond swiftly to environmental changes and are regarded as an early warning system for other species losses, they can be used to assess the ecosystem’s health.
The fact that butterflies serve as indicators for all the other groups is one of the best things about them and the amazing data we have about them, according to Fox.
“So we know a little bit about how our bees are doing, and we know a little bit about how bugs, beetles, flies, wasps, and other important insects are doing.”
We’ll go hungry,
Amy Walkden, the branch secretary for Butterfly Conservation in Devon, is one of many aficionados who observes the butterflies year-round with the aid of her daughter Robin, who is eight.
I believe that having a yearly record of what is present and what is not present is extremely important scientific data to highlight changes like habitat degradation and global warming, she added.
Robin, her daughter, seems to understand how important they are.
“If we don’t have any butterflies and all the buzzy things, then the things that eat butterflies won’t have any food,” she pointed out.
We eat from the food chain, so if there is no food chain, we will perish and won’t be able to exist, will we?
Fox acknowledges that the challenge is “enormous” but expects that the most recent yearly count will spur policymakers to act more.
Tens of millions of trees will be planted over the course of the next three years, according to the UK government, which seeks to stop biodiversity loss and climate change.
Fox praised the proposal but added that additional initiatives, such as low-intensity agri-environment programs, are required “so that the public money paid to farmers will benefit the environment and support biodiversity.”
There is much more we can do to ensure that the margins around fields are managed in a way that will improve the situation for our more widespread and common butterflies, he continued.
