10 October 2016
The Big
Butterfly Count - an
annual survey by thousands of volunteers - recorded an average 12.2 per count,
compared with a 2013 high of 23.
Numbers
were even lower than a previous slump in the wet summer of 2012, despite far
warmer weather.
Butterfly
Conservation, which organised the count, said the cause was still a mystery.
Image
copyright Butterfly Conservation Image
caption Red admirals bucked the trend
and showed a huge jump in recorded numbers
The
count involved more than 36,000 people who recorded more than 390,000
butterflies.
The
survey has been running since 2010 but the group uses nationwide figures which
go back to the 1970s.
Butterfly
Conservation's head of recording Richard Fox said: "The overall trend has
been a decline but we expect annual variations based on the weather.
"But
the fall this year has been shocking and disappointing as the summer weather
has been good, and we don't know why.
"The
most extreme thing was the exceptionally mild winter but it is debated if that
is a good or bad thing for butterflies."
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