O F F E N E R B R I E F
an den Ministerpräsidenten von Baden-Württemberg, Herrn Winfried Kretschmann sowie an die zuständigen Minister der Landesregierung
aus Anlass des drastischen Rückgangs unserer Insektenpopulationen
Sehr geehrter Herr Ministerpräsident,
sehr geehrter Herr Minister Hauk, sehr geehrter Herr Minister Untersteller,
Since 2014, biologist Jenny Shrum has been working under the guidance of the island marble butterfly team to restore San Juan Island's population of the butterflies, an insect that scientists believed had gone extinct back in 1908, and which is now a candidate species for protection under the Endangered Species Act. There's only one population in the world, and they flutter about the tumble mustards and pepper plants on the island's harsh, windswept, ocean-beaten coastal prairie.
New figures have emerged in a report by conservationists and nature experts which shows that wildlife in Staffordshire is declining at a rapid rate. The report is the first so-called 'stocktake' of animals and wildlife county-wide. The report by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust assessed species across farmland, freshwater, grassland, wetland, moorland, woodland, and low-land heathland. The figures showed that many species are in decline, from small rodents to insects. These include the hazel dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius), water vole, and numerous butterfly species.
ABOUT 1.4 billion jobs and three-quarters of all crops depend on pollinators, researchers said this week, warning of a dire threat to human welfare if the falls in bee and butterfly numbers are not halted. “World food supplies and jobs are at risk unless urgent action is taken to stop global declines of pollinators,” said a statement from the University of Reading, whose researchers took part in the global review.
A nationwide hunt has begun to save a rare native New Zealand butterfly with no close relatives.The hunt is the first step in a long term project headed by Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust to improve the native forest ringlet butterflys' (Aphantopus hyperantus) bleak future. Steve Wheatley, a senior conservation specialist from Butterfly Conservation in England, has been brought halfway across the world to tour New Zealand gathering records about past and present locations of the butterfly.
In een recente studie gebruikten Andre Gilburn van de Universiteit van Stirling (VK) en collega's vrijwilliger observaties tussen 1984 en 2012 om een statistisch significante correlatie te vinden tussen vlinder populaties en omgevingsfactoren, zoals temperatuur en het gebruik van neonicotinoïden. Van de onderzochte 17 soorten identificeerden de onderzoekers er 15 die met het gebruik van neonicotinoïde pesticiden achteruit gingen (Peer J. (2015) 3, e1402, http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1402) .
In a recent study, Andre Gilburn from the University of Stirling, UK, and colleagues used volunteer observations made between 1984 and 2012 to find statistically significant correlations between butterfly population trends and environmental factors, including temperatures and neonicotinoid use. Out of the 17 species investigated, the researchers identified 15 that appeared to decline in line with the use of neonicotinoid pesticides (Peer J. (2015) 3, e1402, http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1402).
Massive amounts of observation data recorded by amateurs are available for butterflies, allowing scientists to study their population dynamics and response to environmental threats. They report serious declines in many rarer species leading to an overall loss in biodiversity. As these declines reflect the impacts of land use change, climate change and pesticide use, they also provide an alarm system to warn of imminent dangers to other, less visible parts of our natural environment. Michael Gross reports.
Butterfly numbers are suffering a "shock collapse", a study shows today as conservationists raise concern farm pesticides are causing the worst population fall in six years. Despite a warm summer that would normally help them thrive, the majority of species studied in the annual Big Butterfly Count saw populations fall. Some saw their worst numbers since the citizen science project began in 2010.
Michael McCarthy has published a powerful, sensitive new book, The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy, a book about the wonders of the natural world and about its decline. In a chapter called “The Great Thinning,” McCarthy, a highly regarded British environmental journalist, notes the difference between extinction at the national level and extinction at the local level. He observes that among birds “there were only two national extinctions in Britain in the post-war period,” the red-backed shrike and the wryneck.