The RSPB has recently announced that it will expand its horizons and not only save endangered species of birds from extinction, but insects as well.

The conservation group intends to bring back endangered species of bees, crickets, moths, and hoverflies on its wide range of nature reserves.

RSPB has decided to look beyond birds and widen its restoration of lost wildlife species in honour of 2010 – the International Year of Biodiversity.

At the top of the list of insects to be brought back is the short-tailed bumblebee that once roamed the south of England before succumbing to extinction due to changes in farming methods.

Although the last recorded population of this species of bee in the UK was in 1988, populations taken to New Zealand by British settlers have managed to survive.

Some of the bees will be brought back this summer and released on the RSPB Dungeness reserve in Kent. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Natural England and bees and wasps conservation group Hymettus will all aid the project.

RSPB and Natural England will also team up to reintroduce field crickets to reserves in Surrey and West Sussex in April.

A severe loss of habitats such as lowland heathland and grassland has caused the field cricket population to decrease dramatically.

They were dangerously close to extinction in the late 1980s after being reduced to a single colony of 100 crickets in Sussex.

The RSPB in Scotland will take on projects to bring back the threatened pine hoverfly and the rare dark bordered beauty moth with the help of Scottish Natural Heritage and Butterfly Conservation respectfully.

Dr. Mark Avery, the RSPB’s Director of Conservation, says it’s important for the organization to not only help birds, but any wildlife it can. In the future this may mean moving various species northwards in an effort to combat climate change.

“No conservation organisation worth its salt concentrates on just one species and ignores all others,” says Avery. “2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity and that chimes perfectly with our efforts to protect whole ecosystems on our reserves from the smallest bug to the tallest tree.”

Currently there are 13,000 different species on 200 RSPB reserves that will soon be home to some of the most endangered and uncommon insects in the country.

By Taylor Turner

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