Where have all the butterflies gone?

Jul 19 2008 by Hilarie Stelfox, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

SIR David Attenborough was on television this week to warn us all that butterflies may become a thing of the past.

“Ten years ago you'd see lots of butterflies in your garden,”' he said, “now there are hardly any.”'

Until he said that I hadn't really thought about it. But, he's absolutely right.

We have a huge hebe and several buddleia (known as the butterfly plant) in our garden and I have yet to see a butterfly on any of them this year.

Which is extremely worrying, as Sir David says that butterflies are the litmus paper of nature. If they are disappearing then something is going dramatically wrong.

The weather may be partly to blame, but that in itself is probably a sinister symptom of a wider environmental disease.

Economic meltdown may, in the end, be the least of our problems.