as goes the moths

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If you have followed this blog, you know I have a fondness for moths. But some studies have shown that worldwide there's a drop in their numbers. If so, this would have an effect of the moth-eaters.

The European cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is in decline on the other side of the Atlantic.

Environmental writer Michael McCarthy writes, “It is possible also that the cuckoo has been hit by a significant side effect of intensive farming; insect decline."

"With cuckoos—and with bats, many of which are also declining—the issue is moths."

"However, some of the moths whose caterpillars cuckoos take have dropped in numbers precipitously in Britain in recent decades. We know this from one of the biggest data sets on insect populations anywhere in the world, the records of the countrywide network of moth traps run since 1968 by the Rothamsted agricultural research station in Hertfordshire. When this data was analyzed in 2003, it was found that 226 out of the 337 moth species examined had decreased over the 35 years, many by alarming amounts: 75 species had decreased by more than 70 percent, another 57 species had decreased by more 50 percent, and a further 60 by over 25 percent.”

And as goes the caterpillars, so goes the caterpillar eaters.


-From "Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo: Migratory Birds and the Impending Ecological Catastrophe" by Michael McCarthy, 2010, Ivan R. Dee publisher, pages 236-37

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