Produced to coincide with the International Year of Biodiversity, this ‘Lost life report identifies nearly 500 animals and plants that have become extinct in England – practically all within the last two centuries. It also highlights how habitat loss, inappropriate management, environmental pollution and pressure from non-native species have all played a part in the erosion of England’s biodiversity.
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“No one knows exactly when the last Ivell’s sea anemone died. Its final known site in the world was a small brackish lagoon near Chichester on the south coast of England. When the last individual at this site died, probably in the 1980s, the species was lost forever: a global extinction event, in England, on our watch. We live in a small country blessed with a rich variety of wildlife – one in which the natural world is widely appreciated, and studied as intensely as anywhere in the world. Today this variety of life is under pressure from human activities as never before. As a result, many of our native species, from the iconic red squirrel to the much less familiar bearded stonewort, are in a fight for survival. This report documents for the first time the nearly 500 species we’ve lost from England in the recent past. This figure is by no means the true total since, for many species groups like fungi, algae and the marine invertebrates, we don’t know the full extent of those that exist, let alone those that have disappeared. We do know that 12% of land mammals, 22% of amphibians and 24% of our native butterflies have been lost, though fortunately most of these, unlike Ivell’s sea anemone, do still occur in other countries. In addition to these losses, many more species are threatened and need our help. 2010 is designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Biodiversity. We hope that by highlighting the scale of losses and current threats to England’s species, and the successful efforts to improve the fortunes of some of our threatened species, this report will stimulate even greater action to conserve our natural environment. It may be too late for Ivell’s sea anemone, but let’s not just be the generation who realised the scale and impact of the loss of biodiversity, let’s also be the generation that did something about it. ” Dr Helen Phillips Chief Executive, Natural England