Britain’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds — worried that its feathered friends are underfed — has devised a highly original and not very scientific means to measure a possible decline in the insect population, The Independent reported on Thursday.
A ”splatometer”, as the name suggests, is a cross-ruled piece of cardboard attached to the front of a motor vehicle, a kind of bug-counter graveyard for grasshoppers, dragonflies or any other insects unlucky enough to jump or fly into harm’s way.
The Royal Society enlisted the help of about 40 000 volunteer drivers who attached the makeshift devices to their cars and then reported the number and type of bug fatalities registered.
”Many people were astonished by how few insects they splatted,” said Richard Bashford, the head of the study.
The meager yield — only five bugs per 7,5km on the road — suggests a decline in Britain’s insect population over the past three decades, Bashford said.
According to the Royal Society the number of swallows in Britain has plummeted by 65% over the same period.
The report did not say what the ”splatometer” data was compared to in order to yield the comparison over time. Nor did it say whether any birds wound up flattened against the cardboard grids. — Sapa-AFP