Is this the future of UK nature?

Mistle Thrush populations have declined significantly since the 1970s, especially on farmland across the UK. In the last 13 years the species has moved from the green list of Birds of Conservation Concern to the red list because its decrease had worsened so dramatically. Population decline is likely due to lower survival of young and agricultural intensification.

Farmland covers 70% of the UK. Since the 1970s, farming has simplified and intensified, providing less and less habitat for native wildlife. While the rate of such habitat loss has slowed in recent times, the situation is still getting worse. A third of agricultural land is used to  grow crops, many of which are fed to animals. These vast, flat fields are typical of Lincolnshire and East Anglia.

Here, a volunteer for the Wandle Trust removes a motorbike from the River Wandle during a monthly clean up operation. Motorbikes leak toxic fuel, polluting the river directly, but similar regularly fly-tipped large items like car parts, trolleys, safes, bathtubs and arm chairs trap silt and smother the natural gravels on the riverbed where plants and animals live and fish lay their eggs.

A mute swan paddles through plastic in Manchester. The River Tame in Greater Manchester recently recorded the highest level of microplastics anywhere in the world and combined with toxic algae in river systems due to rising global temperatures, many waterbirds are dying as a result of pollution.

Pollinators like this bumblebee are in decline and struggling because of habitat loss, due to increased urbanisation and industry, the intensification of agriculture, the heavy use of pesticides and herbicides and a loss of wildflower meadows.

Orphaned baby hedgehogs at Secret World Wildlife Rescue in Somerset, who recieve around 600 hedgehogs for rehabilitation annually. Autumn baby hedgehogs often struggle to find enough food to put on weight for Winter hibernation and it is estimated that hedgehog numbers have plummeted by a half in the UK since 2000. Garden habitat is increasingly wildlife unfriendly, with paved over driveways and astroturfed lawns becoming commonplace.

The sun rises behind the cooling towers of coal-powered Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, lighting up the steam produced from the generation process, fuelled by the burning of fossil fuels. Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire is one of the UK’s few remaining coal-fired power stations. The burning of unsustainable fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions which are causing climate change.  In the case of coal, burning it also causes dangerous air pollution, and building the huge infrastructure required by fossil fuel power stations can destroy habitats whilst pollution and climate change endanger wildlife. The UK is leading the way by phasing it out of power supply by 2025.

A digital composite image of 15 minutes of air traffic over the WWT London Wetland Centre in Barnes. Just a small selection of the 41 planes that passed over in 1 hour as they came in to land at London Heathrow Airport (2nd Oct 2018 15:45 - 16:45). Along with noise pollution, aircraft cause emissions – including carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter – which add to climate change and air pollution, damaging nature and wildlife, as well as people’s health. 

The Friends of Horsey Seals receive reports of around 25 separate individual seals entangled with plastic “necklaces” each year from the single seal colony at Horsey in Norfolk. This adult grey seal has a black plastic band around its neck, which has cut through the seal’s blubber to the flesh. Many are rescued, treated and cut free or rehabilitated, but not all can be caught and remain entangled, eventually dying from infection or starvation.

In 2018, there are 37.9 million motor vehicles licensed for use on roads in Great Britain. Roads fragment wildlife habitat and motor vehicles are a major cause of air pollution and wildlife fatalities and casualties. Project Splatter, a citizen science project at Cardiff University receive around 10 000 reports of roadkill badgers per year like this individual freshly killed in Oxfordshire. They report that 90% of people in the UK who have never seen a live badger - only dead on the roadside, and they receive regular reports of dead recovering native species like pine martens, otters and polecats.