Archive
INSECT DECLINE HEADLINES
25/07/2024
Although the subject is depressing and I have mentioned it several times in my weekly notes, it is good to see such eminent naturalists as Tony Juniper CBE, Chair of Natural England, writing about it in the serious national press[1].
Mr Juniper notes that even those with only a passing interest in nature have remarked on the lower numbers of butterflies and other flying insects this year. Something is seriously wrong, and it is not just the poor summer weather. Everywhere I go, even on the warm summer days this week, the usually great numbers of bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, flies and other insects are just not around. I never have to clean washed bugs off my windscreen or car radiator these days, even after long journeys. Indeed, few garages bother to put out a cloth and bucket of water by the fuel pumps now.
The Bugs Matter national survey of number plates is showing a drop of squished bugs approaching 80% in the last two decades! That is truly shocking. As Mr Juniper notes, and I and other ecologists have been batting on about, these data are telling us something very important and of very great concern.
[1] The Guardian 13 July 2024.
Remember that these flying insects deliver vital ecosystem services to us. They pollinate our crops, garden flowers and wild plants, ensuring not just much of our fruit and many of our vegetables, but seeds for future generations of plants in our parks and green spaces. These insects are also vital food for our insectivorous birds and mammals such as bats. I wrote recently about this in relation to swallows and other hirundinids, and the adverse knock-on effect through food chains, food webs and ecosystems is very worrying indeed. There are the simple pleasures like the dawn chorus of birdsong which are also consequently impoverished.
What can we do to help our disappearing insects? On a global scale, stop using noxious environmentally toxic insecticides[1] and reduce intensive farming – go more organic. In our gardens, again end use of persistent, broad spectrum insecticides (you can wash greenfly off your roses with a hose or allow ladybirds to come and eat them). Above all, stop being so tidy. Let the weeds grow because they are food for many insects, both those that eat the leaves or burrow into stems and branches, and those that prey on them. Keep an out-of-the-way corner where you can have a pile of prunings, logs and suchlike left alone for insects and other invertebrates to colonise. If you’d like a book on wildlife gardening, we have a free one you can download here:
https://www.bettsecology.co.uk/media/1519/inhortoferitas_final.pdf.
[1] Please lobby your MP to end any use of neonicotinoids in the UK.
