Picture this…
It’s the 1980s, it’s late at night, you’re driving down a narrow country lane with your headlamps on full beam. As you navigate the hedge-lined road, you become aware of the rapidly evolving light show in front of you as hundreds of moths, flies and other night flying insects streak through the beam of your headlights.
Gone But Not Forgotten
To those of us old enough, this is a sight remembered fondly, but now it’s sadly only a memory.
Take a late-night country drive these days, and it’s a very different story. You may see the odd moth or two if you’re lucky, but the seen that was so common place just a few decades ago has now all but vanished.
The reason for this is that flying insects, and indeed insect populations in general, are in rapid decline.
Citizen Science
Our stories of late night 1980s car journeys could easily be written off as the exaggerated ramblings of someone pining for the “good old days”, but fortunately there are people out there who are gathering data to show just how quickly this decline is happening.
The brilliant charity Buglife have been running a citizen science project called Bugs Matter (click here to get involved) to put numbers to the extent of this disturbing decline. Led by the Kent Wildlife Trust, volunteers across the UK have been measuring squashed bugs on their number plates for the past 20 years.
Disturbingly, they have found that…
Since 2004, the number of squashed insects on number plates has decreased by 83% in England. And it’s not much better in the rest of the UK.
The insects in question haven’t learnt how to dodge cars, they’re just not there anymore.
This might seem like good news if you like to keep your car clean, but if you’re worried about the future of life on earth, then you should be very concerned.
Worldwide Declines
It’s not just the UK either, it’s a problem across the world.
In Germany a report from PLOS (Public Library of Science) found a 75% drop in flying insects in less than 30 years, and that data was collected within a protected conservation area.
The potential impact of this decline is enormous. A reduction in flying insects causes a knock-on effect that ripples through the food chain, causing similar rapid declines in dependent predators such as birds and bats. It also has implications for pollination of wild plants, and indeed the pollination of our own food crops, which depend largely on flying insects.
Why are Insects Declining?
Human population growth, and the associated impact on the environment are the reason for this rapid decline. As humanity spreads, our burden upon the planet has increased causing mounting pollution, an ever warming climate and a reduction in living space available for other living things.
The pursuit of higher yields and higher profits through technology is pulling us towards a more forced, unnatural and unsustainable way of life.
What can we do?
The big changes needed are going to require coordination between the “powers that be” around the world, both political and financial. On the face of it, there doesn’t seem to be much hope here, as we live in a society where money talks, and the environment just gets talked about.
But, you can do your bit by helping the wildlife in your garden. With the ever increasing loss of natural environments, gardens are going to be vital to preserving our insect populations. The Wildlife Gardening section of this site has some ideas of things you can do, we’ll keep adding to this section with new articles; please let us know through the comments section below if you have ideas that others might find useful.
Get Involved
You can also get involved with wildlife charities. For example, you could help with the aforementioned Buglife’s Bugs Matter citizen science project (click here for full details) by downloading their app and counting bugs squashed on your number plate.
The data collected by projects such as this enables environmental organisations to quantify the problem. This allows them to then lobby governments with cold hard facts, forcing those in power to see the serious situation we’re in.
Let’s hope they start to take notice before it’s too late.