The state of British butterflies

A new report called 'The state of butterflies in Britian and Ireland' by the charity Butterfly Conservation has just been resleased.

It present s a mixed picture of the state of british butterflies. Some have done quite well but many other gave continued to decline. It seems that generalists who can cope with different environments are doing quite well but specialists that rely on particular habitats have done badly. There is also evidence of range expansion of some species probably because of climate change. This is ok for species that are able to move to a new habitat, if you are a species that relies on a small patch of habitat then it's bad news.

Hopefully this survey will provide clues as to how our butterflies can be conserved and unline the importance of climate change to many species.

Some of the data from the BBC:

Painted Lady (+31%)
Red Admiral (+30%)
Marsh Fritillary (-32%)
White-letter Hairstreak(-68%)
Pearl-bordered Fritillary (-77%)
High Brown Fritillary (-82%)
Source: Butterfly Conservation, figures for 1995-2004 survey, compared to 1970-1982

See also The Guardian, Times and Independent