Crisis time for rare butterflies

4:38pm Sunday 4th May 2008

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WET weather has caused a crisis in the UK's butterfly populations with numbers of several species which are prevalent in Cumbria at an all-time low.

According to research by the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, Britain's butterflies desperately need good weather in the coming months to recover from last year's summer, the wettest since records began.

The survey found that populations of eight butterflies were at an all-time low - the Common Blue, the Grayling, the Lulworth Skipper, the Small Skipper, the Small Tortoiseshell, the Speckled Wood, the Chalkhill Blue and the Wall.

The High Brown Fritillary and the Duke of Burgundy, both of which have important populations in Cumbria, also fared badly.

A spokesman for Butterfly Conservation said experts were "waiting anxiously" to see if Britain's butterflies could recover from last year's decline - the worst for a quarter-of-a-century.

For full story see this week's Westmorland Gazette.