There have been alarming declines this year in some insect species including bees, butterflies, moths and wasps, while many seabirds have also been “hammered” by unstable weather patterns caused by the climate emergency, a conservation charity has said.
In its annual report on the impact of the weather on flora and fauna, the National Trust highlights that numbers of bees and butterflies have “crashed” in some areas of the UK in 2024.
It describes the apparent decline of birds such as the globally threatened Arctic tern as “very shocking” and mentions diseases that are striking the white-clawed crayfish and sycamores.
The trust’s head of nature conservation and restoration ecology, Ben McCarthy, said the lurch from drier conditions since the summer of 2022 and through much of 2023 to a very wet and mild 2024 – bookended by fierce storms – had had a “devastating impact”.
“The unpredictability of the weather and blurring of the seasons is adding additional stresses to our struggling wildlife,” he said. “The overall trends are alarming.”