News

Some of the most well known mega fauna is facing an extinction crisis but often in the world of conservation, invertebrates are overlooked. It's stated that 20% of invertebrate life is at risk of extinction, it’s predicted that over 150,000 species of invertebrates will go extinct by 2050 unless we take action.

In the UK there are roughly 40,000 native invertebrate species, many of which are facing extinction right in front of our eyes.

The Bug Issue is a new conservation campaign led by the BIAZA Terrestrial Invertebrate Working Group (TIWG) that will focus on conserving some of the most endangered native invertebrates to the UK and Ireland.

The Bug Issue is proposing a new way to address the conservation of 20 forgotten invertebrate species, that are on the edge of extinction. By working with TIWG and BIAZA, zoos and aquariums local to the species will become conservation hubs and coordinate species action plans following advice and guidance from local experts and groups. Zoos and aquariums will help the species in whatever way the species requires this could be field surveys, habitat restoration, breeding, research, raising public awareness and more.

Bug Issue aims to aid the recovery of 20 invertebrate species that are on the edge of extinction. These species survive in only a handful of sites in the UK and are in very urgent need of collaborative action to prevent them from extinction.

Over the last 200 years, over 400 species have been lost from the UK. We want to ensure that this number does not increase and The Bug Issue will help us take urgent action for these 20 threatened invertebrates.

But to make this campaign a success we need your zoological collections' help! We ask any and all collections interested and wanting to get involved to register their interest by December 31st 2019. The more zoos and aquariums we have wanting to get involved, the bigger impact we can have and increase our chances of saving local invertebrates. A crisis meeting will be held before April 2020. Can you help?

Please email: [email protected]