A GREEDY insect is having a ‘substantial’ impact on grouse moors in Eden and the Yorkshire Dales.

The voracious heather beetle – which has been stripping vegetation away from acres of hillsides nationally – is making its mark on local uplands.

A mild winter followed by a warm and wet early summer has provided ideal conditions for the beetle larvae, which kill the heather by eating it from the inside out.

Scotland and Swaledale have been particularly badly hit, but the true picture of how bad a problem the beetle has become has only emerged as moorland was opened up for the shooting season on‘The Glorious Twelfth’.

Martin Gilliberand, secre-tary of the Moorland Assoc-iation, based in Lancaster, said it had had ‘a substantial effect’ on moorland across the Pennine region.

“Different areas have got different degrees of damage but some are very badly hit. When the heather beetle takes over, it destroys the heather,” he said.

“Birds won’t move aay immediately because there are seeds and berries still available but eventually the beetle will take all affected areas out of production for grouse and bees.”

He added: “It’s a phenom-enon that comes and then disappears. In High Leck, near Kirkby Lonsdale, there are no signs of the beetle, but up the road in Eden about a quarter of the moor that seems to have been affected.”

Though the heather beetle is thought to be a significant problem the long-term affects are as yet unknown.

“It really depends on how beetles spread,” said Mr Gilliberand. “We will have to wait and see..”

Val Hack, an ecologist who works on High Abbotside Moor, near Hawes, said: “Wherever you get the beetle it will have quite a big impact.

"If all the heather is gone it will definitely effect next year’s stock.”

Ms Hack said young heather can take up to three years to grow back, but older heather may take 15 years to return.

The only way to tackle the beetle is to burn the heather or release the predatory ichnemon wasp.