Butterflies face extinction

A new study has suggested a third of European butterflies are in decline with one in ten threatened with extinction.

Britain could face losing two species of butterfly, the Duke of Burgundy (pictured above) and the Lulworth Skipper, if urgent action isn't taken. Both butterflies have declined in recent years and are now at threat of extinction according to the European Red List assessment of species at risk.

The Lulworth Skipper (pictured right) can now only be found along the south coast of Dorset having declined by 87% since 1980. The Duke of Burgundy have dropped from 200 to just 80 colonies in the last 20 years.

The Large Blue is also showing cause for concern. It is endangered throughout the continent and disappeared from the British countryside in 1979. It has since been successfully reintroduced into Somerset and Dorset.

The chief executive of UK charity Butterfly Conservation, Dr Martin Warren, blamed the decline on habitat loss due to intensive farming practices.

He said "we need to see much greater efforts for farmers to adopt environmentally sensitive agriculture."

A study conducted by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has highlighted concerns for 22 species of butterfly, 29 species of beetle and 5 types of dragonfly.

Commercial whaling may go ahead after 25 year ban

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) have announced a proposal to allow the killing of whales in their most precious feeding grounds.

If adopted, the proposal will allow legitimate commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary, despite a ban being imposed there since 1994. The Southern Ocean is home to many species of whales including blue whales, humpback whales and fin whales (pictured).

A moratorium on commercial whaling has been held by the IWC since 1986 but countries such as Norway and Iceland have legal objections to the ban. Japan has continued to conduct commercial whaling by using a loophole saying that is legal to kill whales for "scientific purposes".

The proposal has been announced in an effort to bring whaling under the IWC's control and will give these countries official commercial whaling quotas for the next 10 years.

Wendy Elliott, Species Program manager at WWF-International, said "the proposed quotas are not set sing the IWC's own scientific methods, but are a result of political bargaining which has little if anything to do with the whales' themselves. Setting quotas for commercial whaling based on politics not science would be a step backwards for IWC."

Elliott adds "if there is one place on earth where whales should have full protection, it is the Southern Ocean. Allowing commercial whaling in an area where whales are so vulnerable goes against logic."

The Chair of the IWC has also proposed commercial whaling quotas for whale species listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as endangered. Fin whales and sei whales are both endangered species but if the proposal went ahead it would contribute to the deaths of 65 fin whales and 500 sei whales over a 10 year period.

Before the last ban, commercial whaling cause numbers of the sei whale in the Pacific Ocean to drop from 42,000 to just 8,600. 725,000 fin whales were also killed in the Southern Ocean as a result of commercial whaling and a most recent estimate brings their numbers to just 15,178 suggesting that whales have not yet recovered from the last time commercial whaling was legal.

Members of the IWC will decide at their next meeting in Morocco whether or not to adopt the proposal.