CHARLIE ELDER
Charlie is a journalist and author. He says, “Nature never stands still, but we’re in for a rollercoaster ride in Britain as new species move in and others lose out.”
A ll around us are signs that Britain’s wildlife is rapidly changing. Change itself is not new, but the pace can seem bewildering. Little egrets first bred in Dorset as recently as 1996 – and are now an everyday sight across southern Britain. Tree bumblebees, first spotted in Wiltshire in 2001, have already reached Scotland. And still the roll call of animal and plant colonists keeps growing.
Our changing climate is one factor helping new species to gain a toehold. But while some arrive under their own steam, others are being introduced by us. In the past such releases were often on the whim of eccentric (if well-meaning) landowners; today they are usually the unwanted consequence of global trade and transport links.
Long-native species are also experiencing big changes. Some are spreading – hobbies, marsh harriers, comma butterflies, bee orchids and lime hawkmoths, for example. Others have suffered catastrophic losses, including many farmland ‘weeds’, invertebrates and birds.
Britain’s natural environment has always been dynamic, of course, and humans have long played a part. We hastened the disappearance of aurochs, elk, bears, lynx, wolves and other megafauna, and the scale of change accelerated with industrial and agricultural intensifification. Yet we also created habitats, such as coppiced woodland and hay meadows. More recently conservationists have repaired some damage by reintroducing species such as red kites, shorttailed bumblebees and large blue butterflies.
So what might our wildlife look like by 2050? Which newcomers will reach our shores, and which residents will shift range? Climate change is only one variable – the future political, legal and cultural landscape has also been considered by our experts. Read on to see their predictions.
G o mammal spotting in 2050 and you might get a sense of having stepped back in time. A stroll through an English woodland could lead to a chance encounter with a ‘sounder’ of wild boar, or a fleeting sighting of a pine marten at dusk. Following a river one might spot a beaver dam, or glimpse a polecat darting into a hedgerow. Thehee resurgence of some native species,es,, and reintroductions of others, seemsms likely to create a much more diversese mmammalian fauna across swaths of BritaBritainain in coming decades.
Eurasiann bebeavers,avers,ave hunted to extinction 4000 years ago,go, will probably be among the first to claim new territory. “If thehe success of the River Tay beavers in Scotlandld is anythingh to go by, they should spread far and wide,” says Mammal Society chief executive Marina Pacheco. Similarly, wild boar that have also found their way out of enclosures appear set to roam beyond current hotspots, such as the Forest of Dean.
Only persistent heavy culling would have a chance of stopping boar from colonising new areas. Renewed persecution is likewise the only serious barrier to the continued ranrange expansion of otters in our lowlands, unlessnless future drodroughts were to cause wetlandsld to ddry up andd river levels to drop. Meanwhile the onward march of pine martens could, based on the situation in Ireland, be good news for beleaguered red squirrels. In central Ireland pine