City Insights

The Big Sus­sex But­ter­fly Count

By Jennifer Drury

Taking the pulse of nature

This week Sir David Attenborough launched the world's biggest butterfly survey - The Big Butterfly Count. The Big Butterfly Count is a nationwide survey aimed at helping us assess the health of our environment. Butterflies are vital to ecosystems. They help pollinate fruit and vegetables and, second only to bees, they help put about 10% of our food on the table. Butterfly declines are an early warning for other wildlife losses; that’s why counting butterflies can be described as taking the pulse of nature.

East Sussex team wins

As part of the survey, two teams from Sussex scoured the countryside from the back of a Land Rover for The Big Sus­sex But­ter­fly Count, to see who could identify the most spe­cies in a day. The Purple Emperors were the West Sussex team, while the Silver Spotted Skippers represented East Sussex. It was a very close run, but West Sussex won by two species. The Mayor of Brighton and Hove, Councillor Bill Ran­dall crowned the win­ning team at the but­ter­fly haven at Dorothy Stringer School The cere­mony formed part of the school’s Envir­on­mental Sum­mer Fayre.