UK: Rare species make a comeback
Copyright 2001 Times (UK)
DECEMBER 05 2001
BY VALERIE ELLIOTT, COUNTRYSIDE EDITOR
NATURE-LOVERS can once again see the star fruit, the ladybird spider and the large blue butterfly. They are among a number of plants, animals and insects that were on the verge of extinction ten years ago but can now be found at numerous sites.English Nature, the Government’s wildlife adviser, reported the change in fortune for these species yesterday after a £6 million conservation programme.
The star fruit, Damasonium alisma, a flowering plant with star-shaped seed heads, was thought to be down to one last plant in a Surrey pond in 1991, but today it is found on 13 sites in Surrey, Hampshire and Buckinghamshire.
The ladybird spider, Eresus cinnaberinus, one of Britain’s rarest, was thought to be extinct until 1979 when 19 were discovered on heathland near Wareham in Dorset. The male has a bright red body with four black spots, and black and white legs, while the female is black and never comes out of her burrow. There are now more than 500.The large blue butterfly, Maculinea arion, became extinct in 1979 and butterflies were brought from Sweden to reintroduce the species. It can now be found in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset and conservationists are planning to reintroduce it on 115 sites in the south of England.
Another species making a comeback is the wart-biter cricket, Gryllus campestris. There were four isolated populations, of about 200, on chalk grasslands along the M25 corridor. Now more than 2,000 have been seen in Surrey and the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset.
The lady’s slipper orchid, Cypripedium calceolus, was reduced to a single plant in Yorkshire mainly through over-collection during the 19th century. Now there are more than 300 on 15 sites in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Cumbria and Co Durham.Conservationists also believe the dormouse, Muscardinus avellanarius, which was extinct in large parts of the south and east of England, is now breeding in Kent, Surrey, East and West Sussex, Bedfordshire, Worcestershire and Cambridgeshire Sir Martin Doughty, chairman of English Nature, said “These animals and plants are every bit as threatened as tree frogs, leopards and giant pandas, and the places where they live are as special as the rainforests of South America or the great plains of Africa.”