What is wildlife?
‘Wildlife’ means all the plants, animals and other living things found in the wild. These can be mammals such as squirrels, reptiles like the sand lizard, fish, insects, and tiny little animals that you can’t see easily.
What are habitats?
Habitats are the places where plants and animals live. They are all around us – on the land, in the water, in the city and in the countryside. Habitats can be large, like woodlands and farmlands, or small, like ponds and hedgerows. Some animals live in really tiny places, like the space between sand grains!
What is happening?
In the UK alone, there are about 37,000 different species of animals and 65,000 different species of plants. Sadly, though, over the last 100 years more than 170 plant and animal species have completely disappeared.
Today, about 15% of all British wildlife is still at risk, especially animals such as the otter and the brown hare. Unless we do something to help, things will only get worse.
The main reason why some types of plants and animals are becoming endangered species is that their habitats are lost or have changed. Animals like moths, birds and bats have lost their homes as people have cut down the hedgerows they live in. Also, a lot of ponds are no longer suitable for the animals and plants to live in because they are polluted, or people have filled them in.
What can we do?
We need to save many species of endangered British wildlife from extinction before it is too late. You can help by supporting environmental groups like the Environment Agency that are working to protect our rare wildlife and habitats from the danger of disappearing forever. You can even create a small wildlife habitat yourself, by making a pond at school or in your garden.
For a leaflet about how to create your own wildlife pond, please call: 0645 333 111.