A very rare Purple Emperor butterfly, without it's usual markings. Many of the UK's common and garden butterfly species could be in declineHalf of the UK's common and garden butterfly species are threatened with extinction, conservationists warned today.
Numbers have hit an all-time low in the past three years as bad summer weather compounded long-term problems such as more intensive farming in the past 50 years.
Wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation said that seven out of 10 species of the insect are in decline in the UK.
Fragmentation of habitat is also making it difficult, particularly for rarer species, to move around, isolating and damaging populations.
Richard Fox, surveys manager at Butterfly Conservation, said more common butterflies such as red admirals and peacock butterflies are much more mobile than rare species, but could also be affected by changes to their habitat.
Species like the meadow brown and small blue are much less widespread than they would have been 50 years ago.
Butterflies which visit gardens, using them as 'motorway service stations' to feed in while breeding elsewhere, are not helped by gardening fashions such as putting down decking or paving over front lawns for driveways.
The loss of gardens to development and practices of 'tidying up' parks, roadside verges and wasteland damages wildlife by removing habitats, he said.
A peacock butterfly which are the longest-lived butterflies in Britain, with adults surviving from late July, well into the following springButterfly Conservation is urging the public to spend quarter of an hour in a garden, park or field this week - July 24 to August 1 - and make a note of the species of any butterfly they see there as well as day-flying moths such as hummingbird hawk-moths.
The conservation group hopes the information will help build up a better picture of the fortunes of the country's butterflies, and give an indication of the wider health of our nature world.
Mr Fox said it is very difficult to monitor common species found in private gardens and urban areas, and appealed to members of the public to help gather more information about butterflies in towns, cities and gardens.
The information will show if this year's warm, sunny summer has allowed butterfly numbers to recover, as well as record species moving north as the climate changes and even colonising cities where they were previously not found.
'Reports suggest numbers of many garden species and common or widespread species are down so far this year but the warm weather will have benefited them,' he said.
'We have this background of long-term decline for the majority of butterfly species, both rare and common and garden species.
'This year by recent standards we had a long hot spell for whole of June which, compared to the last few summers, was amazing and will have benefited the butterflies that were out and about at that time,' he said, adding that most of the butterflies out in late spring and early summer were scarcer species.
Sir David Attenborough, president of Butterfly Conservation, which is running the count in partnership with Marks & Spencer, said: 'Butterflies are extraordinary, heart-lifting creatures - visions of beauty and visions of summer.
'Butterflies in profusion tell us that all is well with nature. When they decline it's a warning that other wildlife will be soon heading the same way.
'So with the big butterfly count we will be doing more than just counting butterflies - we'll be taking the pulse of nature.'
source: dailymail
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