I am not going to pretend to be an expert on butterflies, moths and the other insects; all I can really claim is a passing interest. Admittedly, I enjoy walking through a meadow and watching the butterflies flitting about, just above the grass. I marvel at the range of other insects, the beauty of some of them and the ugliness of others. I admire the different life-styles they have developed and the way they have developed to cope with a wide variety of different circumstances. I even think my eyesight is failing when I discover I am looking at a living thing and cannot see it because it is so well camouflaged. Insects must be the most beautiful, and the ugliest living creatures. They also must be the easiest to see and the hardest to find depending on the species.
What I do know about insects is that like all living things both plant and animal, they need the proper habitat and the right food supply if they are going to survive. Unlike other members of the animal kingdom which will eat a wide range of species, the young of many members of the insect world live exclusively on one species or family of plants. The adults may well live exclusively on another species. Some species are adaptable and can survive under a wide range of different conditions - the species we don't like and in general fear or try to destroy, while, the more beautiful species are more choosy about where they live and easier to destroy. It is the habitats of these more selective species that we have to be careful to preserve.
Unfortunately - man's use of land, the changes in agriculture and forestry, the increase in the use of pesticides, herbicides and fertiliser, and man's need to put that so called "waste land" to use, all act against the survival of these beautiful creatures, the fairies of the animal kingdom. When we get rid of that clump of nettles we consider the stings we are saving ourselves - we never consider that we are destroying the nursery of the Small Tortoiseshell whose caterpillars eat only stinging nettles. Those well trimmed hedges, the cut back brambles may look better to a human and those dark dismal pine forests may be more productive - but each in it's own way helps reduce the number of those species of moths and butterflies which have adapted to life in the dappled shade of our lanes and round the outskirts of our woods.
Our well kept grass, the change to silage and cutting hay when it is less mature, plus the greater use of nitrogen as a fertiliser has all changed the nature of our grassy areas. These changes have greatly reduced the numbers of meadow butterflies which either starve for lack of the rougher grasses which thrive with low nitrogen or are chopped up half way through their caterpillar stage, ending up in a bale of hay or a silage heap. Many of our other insect species including moths suffer the same fate. Waste ground, old sand pits, wetlands and to a certain extent wide road verges are the only places left for these species of insects which live on rough grasses to survive. Let's keep our rough grass species and with it our animal fairies fluttering around our legs.
It would be impractical to say that the world should be organised to suit butterflies and moths and other insects, but at least we can leave them somewhere to live. Hands off our remaining "wasteland", wetlands, hedgerows, old sandpits and quarries, and woods. By retaining these natural areas we will not only be preserving our butterflies, moths and other insects but we will also help to retain a wide variety of flora and fauna in our local areas. Hopefully, future changes in the way we live will allow harmony with nature and these areas will act as reservoirs, allowing the species to expand and thrive again. The destruction of these areas further reduces the numbers of many species of wildlife and makes recovery impossible. When a species becomes extinct it is gone forever and can never be brought back.
We don't notice this steady reduction in species 'till we suddenly find it on its last legs. Let's not leave it to other areas to save endangered species, let's play a part in our own area and community by leaving the wild places undisturbed and not endangering their survival in the first place. After all, how can we as a "developed" nation criticize "underdeveloped" countries for destroying their wildlife, when we have all ready changed our landscape so radically. After all at the large end of the animal kingdom we have destroyed the Irish Elk, the wolf, the wild pig, etc. and how much more we don't even know about have we wiped out as the species get smaller. We are still endangering our remaining wildlife while we scorn others for destroying theirs.
