Homeowners are being urged to put down their rolled up newspapers and leave flies and wasps alone which enter their houses this summer. Normally the merest sign of an insect invader turns people into killing machines on the hunt.
But wildlife experts have made a plea for people to just help them to escape out windows and not to kill bugs. This is because there has been a mass extinction taking place.
The clearest sign of it is the fact that cars going on long journeys no longer have hundreds of flies splattered on the front. According to a new study the country’s lying insect population has declined by as much as 60% in the last 20 years - largely caused by increase use of insecticides and also loss of habitat, Yorkshirelive reports.
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Conservation charities Buglife and the Kent Wildlife Trust asked members of the public to count the number of insects splatted against their vehicle number plates, reports The Natural History Museum, and compared it to a similar study from 2004. They found that counts were down the most in England, where 65% fewer insects were recorded, and the least in Scotland, which recorded a 28% fall.
Paul Hadaway, the director of conservation at Kent Wildlife Trust, said: “The results from the Bugs Matter study should shock and concern us all. We are seeing declines in insects, which reflect the enormous threats and loss of wildlife more broadly across the country.
“These declines are happening at an alarming rate and without concerted action to address them we face a stark future. Insects and pollinators are fundamental to the health of our environment and rural economies.
“’We need action for all our wildlife now by creating more and bigger areas of habitats, providing corridors through the landscape for wildlife and allowing nature space to recover.”
People online have in the past shared their techniques for killing flying bugs at home including traps, electric rackets and sticky fly paper, or sicking their cats on them.
But in the face of such startling figures, the best bet might be to shoo flies and wasps back outside rather than kill them.
The Natural History Museum added: “The decline in insects affects all the major groups. In the next few decades, as many as 40% of the world’s species could become extinct, including bees, ants and butterflies.
“These insects represent some of the most significant pollinators of plants. While plants are pollinated in many different ways, insect-pollinated crop plants such as apples, pears, cucumbers, watermelons and almonds, will become significantly less productive without pollinators, and could fail altogether.
“The impact of insect loss goes far beyond our food supplies, however, as animals such as birds which depend on them for food will also be hit.”
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