One in six species in the UK are on the brink of extinction with nearly half of bird species dying out, new report claims.
- UK has seen an average decline of 19 per cent across all species since 1970
Britain is facing a 'sobering' decline in its wildlife with almost one in five species at risk of extinction, according to the latest State Of Nature report.
The report found creatures ranging from birds to mice had seen major losses over the past 50 years, as well as their natural habitats and fauna.
Nearly half of bird species are threatened while almost a third of amphibians, reptiles, fungi and lichen and a quarter of animals are at risk of vanishing.
Over half of flowering plant species no longer grow where they used to, with climate change and intensive farming being the biggest reasons why the UK has seen an average decline of all living species of 19 per cent since monitoring began in 1970.
Even before then, UK wildlife had been depleted by centuries of habitat destruction, unsustainable farming practices and persecution.
The decline of bees and other pollinators damages human food production
Some species, such as dragonflies, have improved thanks to rivers being cleaner (PA)
It means more than half of the UK's plant, fungal and animal life has been killed off.
Professor Richard Gregory, the RSPB's head of monitoring conservation science, said: 'The sobering message is that the state of UK nature and the wider environment, based upon the indices that we've got, continues to decline and degrade.
'At the same time, we've never actually had such a good understanding of the state of nature in the United Kingdom and we've never had such a good understanding of how we might fix it.'
