Participants in the Big Butterfly Count were instructed to record the number of butterflies they saw in a nearby green area, such as a garden, park, or rural area, for a period of fifteen minutes during the course of three weeks in the summer.
To their dismay, however, Butterfly Conservation, the conservation charity that sponsored the survey, discovered that the results this year were the worst in the project’s fourteen-year history.
In a 15-minute count, volunteers saw seven butterflies on average, which is about half as many as they saw in the previous year (12 on average).
People reported seeing no butterflies at all on 9,000 of the 143,241 counts, which is the greatest number in the program’s history.
For little whites and those with green veins, painted lady scotch argus, small tortoises, and common and holly blues, it was the worst summer in the count’s memory.
For all the species, it was not the best summer ever.
According to the nonprofit, butterflies are an essential component of the food chain and an important “indicator” species since their condition provides information about the state of the surrounding ecosystem.
The organization’s chief scientist, Dr. Richard Fox, described the findings as “very disturbing.”
