People say, these days, you can return from a long drive with a clean car, whereas back in the day, the front of the vehicle would be spattered with dead insects.
Is this ‘anecdata’ true?
Data shows a steep decline
- In 2023, citizen science data showed UK nations had a 78% decrease in flying insect abundance since 2004; the sharpest fall was 83% in England.
- ‘The State of the UK’s Butterflies’ showed that 80% of the UK’s 59 butterfly species declined… since the 1970’s.
- In 2016 the UK national pollinator indicator showed a decline of 31% since 1980, with 10% of that just from 2011-2016.
Does it matter?
I spoke to Paul Hetherington, a director at Buglife, a charity aiming to halt the extinction of invertebrate species. Their motto is ‘Saving the small things that run the planet.’ Their homepage has an alarming quote from David Attenborough:
If we and the rest of the back-boned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if the invertebrates were to disappear, the world’s ecosystems would collapse.
Which insects?
Paul says:
“There are declines in all flying insects but some species face greater decreases than others. Riverflies are seeing high declines due to water pollution and rising water temperature pushing many to their limits.
“Bumblebees are particularly badly hit by recent weather pattern changes: extreme heat and extreme wet are really bad news for them and many other pollinators. This year there is a marked decline in wasps, with pest controllers reporting about a tenth of call-outs to destroy nests. Insects that are more specialist in their food are particularly in decline, whilst generalists such as house flies show lower declines.”
Food chains face critical gaps if insects disappear — for example, riverflies are food for fish and bankside birds.
Extinct
The UK is already one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. We have only 12% forest cover, compared to an average of 37% across the EU. Some species are already extinct due to deforestation. In Britain, the large, shiny horned dung beetle went extinct in 1974 because its grassland habitat was given over to intensive farming.
Dung beetles are crucial because they consume and bury animal dung, so improving soil conditions and controlling fly populations. Without them, “we could be up to our knees in poop.”
Habitat loss
I asked Marc Schlossman, author of Extinction: Our Fragile Relationship with Life on Earth, about habitat loss. He says, “Intensive agriculture is effectively habitat destruction, not to mention chemicals.” As wilderness is lost, so we lose the insects.
He told me about the narrow-headed ant, an endangered wood ant. It’s projected to become extinct in England due to the loss of its favoured habitat — heath and moorland. This ant is food for birds, mammals, reptiles and spiders, and plays a role in seed dispersal. Losing them would clearly have a knock-on effect.
Buglife is running a project to increase its populations. Marc added: “Insects are not simply a nuisance but a crucial part of ecosystems: they pollinate our food sources, they are food for birds, hedgehogs and bats.”
Losing pollinators
Pollinators, including bees, butterflies, moths and wasps, are responsible for a third of our diet: fruit, peas, beans, courgettes and carrots all need pollination. Most wildflowers also need pollinators.
Only bumblebees can provide buzz pollination, essential for tomatoes, potatoes, blueberries and cranberries.
Chinese farmers now have to pollinate crops by hand with tiny paint brushes, and many farmers are facing a worrying decline in their land’s natural productivity.
What can we do?
Buglife recommends encouraging insects with these simple measures:
- Have a window box of herbs that you leave to flower.
- Dedicate some garden space for bug habitat (flowers, log piles, etc).
- Draw curtains at night to reduce light pollution from your lighting.
- Stop using pesticides and herbicides so reducing pollution.
- Embracing ideas to make your garden buzz and knowing when to leave well alone.
What is Buglife doing?
The charity has already had much success, for example in saving the ‘Horrid Ground-weaver spider’ (Nothophantes horridus) from extinction.
Buglife now recommends a National Insect Strategy to achieve sustainable invertebrate populations. Key to this is creating the B-Lines network of insect superhighways across the UK.
B-Lines are a network of ‘wildflower-rich habitat stepping stones’ to link existing wildlife areas together, creating connectivity. This helps insects which cannot travel across inhospitable terrains. Look on the map for your local site.
Buglife also wants a government ban on neonicotinoid pesticides which are fatal for bees — one teaspoon is enough to kill 1.25bn honeybees. The EU banned it, but the Conservative government used its ‘Brexit freedoms’ to permit continued use. The Labour government says that it will outlaw it.
East Anglia
Buglife wants rare insects’ habitats protected. In East Anglia, these include the Essex Coast, Suffolk Coast and Heaths, Bedfordshire Greensands, Little Ouse and Waveney Headwaters, the Fens, Brecks and the Norfolk Broads and Coasts.
Current East Anglian projects include reversing the decline of the endangered wormwood moonshiner beetle in the Brecks, and campaigns to save Middlewick Ranges and to preserve woodlands designated for the Norwich Western Link Road. We have written about these before, here and here.
Small but vital
Insects are not as noticeable as larger endangered species, but just as crucial to ecosystems. The Xerces Blue butterfly was one of the first butterflies declared extinct due to human activity.
We must ask, “Is it right that we are actively causing the extinction of so many beautiful creatures? That with so many insects, like the Xerces Blue, the only place you can see them now is pinned in museum inspection trays, dead.”
