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CLIMATE change is putting British wildlife at risk as temperatures keep rising, conservationists warned today.
A new report by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) warns that rising temperatures are shifting species’ ranges north, squeezing available habitat and prompting new arrivals to Britain’s shores.
Numbers of birds such as the lapwing, which thrives in cooler climes, are dropping, while southern European migratory birds like the bee-eater are now nesting in Britain.
The higher frequency of heavy rains and storms is severely affecting birds, butterflies, bees and vegetation, according to the report, and earlier springs and summers have led to plants and animal species getting out of sync, leading to concerns food will not be available when creatures need it.
RSPB director of conservation Martin Harper said: “Climate change is the greatest long-term threat to people and wildlife.
“We are already seeing its impacts, and, alongside other pressures on land and at sea, our wildlife is increasingly at risk.”
Species now breeding in Britain as warmer temperatures move northwards include cattle egrets, purple herons and great white egrets.
But the hot weather also means a threat to 25 per cent of European butterflies and a third of bumblebees, which are expected to lose more than four-fifths of their habitat range by 2080, and Scottish mountain alpine plants have been in decline in recent decades.
The study came after an Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit poll suggested Britons are more worried about the impact of climate change on British wildlife than any other aspect of the problem.
Nearly 80 per cent of those asked feared changes in fauna and flora, compared with just over 70 per cent worried about floods and half concerned with heatwaves.
Last week, the Met Office revealed that global temperatures had risen by more than one degree Celsius this year.
Scientists expect to see an unusual change to sea temperatures this year, causing storms, strong winds and typhoons, otherwise known as the El Nino phenomenon.
