Half of Britain's bird and plant species at risk of extinction: Study

Nearly half of Britain's bird species, and almost a third of amphibians, reptiles and fungi are at the risk of becoming extinct,wildlife scientists have warned.

The annual State of Nature report, published on Wednesday (Sep 27), states that 43 per cent of bird species might vanish, while other creatures such as the hazel dormouse, the lady’s slipper orchid, and the European eel face an uncertain future.

The study has blamed humans for causing habitat loss, accelerating diseases such as avian flu via factory farming, and burning of fossil fuels, which has altered climate.

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Climate change and intensive farming have wiped out the natural habitat of flowering plant species, with UK seeing an average decline of all living species of 19 per cent since monitoring began in 1970, the report states.

The report also paints a sombre picture for organic farmers. According to scientists, insect species that provide pest control, such as the two-spot ladybird, have declined by 34 per cent, showing a sharper decline than insect species in general.

Humans blamed

The report also found that only a fifth of farmland is in a nature-friendly farming scheme and just 44 per cent of woodland is certified as sustainably managed, the Guardian reported citing the study.

“The sobering message is that the state of UK nature and the wider environment, based upon the indices that we’ve got, continues to decline and degrade,” Richard Gregory, the RSPB’s head of monitoring conservation science, said.

“At the same time, we’ve never actually had such a good understanding of the state of nature in the United Kingdom and we’ve never had such a good understanding of how we might fix it."

The study was led by Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), a London-based charitable organisation that works extensively on wildlife conservation.

The report relied on thousands of volunteers recording sightings of various species across the UK, its crown dependencies and overseas territories.

They assessed more than 10,000 species as well as the state of the habitats vital for their survival.

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