Meet the dung beetles of Bushy Park

NationalWorld.com

NationalWorld spoke to entomologist Connor Butler from the Royal Parks' Help Nature Thrive project about dung beetles - the UK's most underappreciated ecosystem architect.

Transcript

00:00 Hi, my name is Connor. I'm an entomologist at the Royal Parks and I work on a project called Help Nature Thrive.

00:07 So in Bushy Park we are doing a survey of the dung beetles we find here because dung beetles are really important environmental indicators

00:14 and they indicate the health of the ecosystem.

00:17 Generally the more species you have the more healthy the ecosystem and we're trying to find what interesting ones we've got here

00:23 because you can't know, you can't protect a species unless you know that it exists.

00:29 Dung beetles are really important recyclers of the animal waste we have here.

00:34 We have around 300 deer in Bushy Park and all of that waste has got to go somewhere

00:39 and dung beetles do this free amazing clean up service for us by eating the dung and they bury it underground.

00:47 And that's really good because it helps to aerate the soil and it helps to clean up all the dung which improves the health of the grassland.

00:54 But it also by breaking up the dung quickly reduces the number of parasitic flies and deer parasites we have in the park.

01:01 So as a visitor dung beetles are your friend because it means there's less things that are going to bite you.

01:07 We've got around 60 different species of dung beetle in the UK and some of them are not doing as well as others.

01:13 We've had a few species go extinct recently.

01:17 They're not very showy, you don't see them rolling big balls of dung.

01:21 They often live within the dung or they'll dig tunnels directly underneath it so you never often see them.

01:25 I think because they're so secretive and yet they do this amazing service for us, I think they're unsung heroes.

01:32 And I think you get some really interesting ones.

01:35 We have minotaur beetles in Bushy Park, they're quite big beetles that feed on rabbit dung.

01:39 And the males have these huge horns that they use to compete with other males.

01:44 And also dung beetles have amazing eyelashes which I think people would be quite jealous of if they saw them.

01:53 I've been interested in dung beetles for probably about seven years now.

01:58 I love them because I think that if you can find interest in dung beetles and spend your days looking in dung,

02:06 I think you're never going to be bored if you go for a walk because there's generally poo everywhere.

02:10 I find it quite satisfying finding these really beautiful beetles in such a disgusting setting.

02:18 So we have a few more surveys in October.

02:21 We started this project in March and it ends in October.

02:25 And that year of survey allows us to capture all the different types of dung beetle that come out different times of the year.

02:30 But the Royal Parks has lots of other volunteering opportunities to get involved with.

02:33 I think we have around 3,000 volunteers that are signed up on our books.

02:37 And pretty much every day in one of the parks there will be a volunteering opportunity,

02:41 whether that's helping with our archaeological projects in Greenwich Park, conservation projects.

02:47 We have horticultural projects. You can go and volunteer in the greenhouses in Hyde Park.

02:53 There's so much stuff to volunteer and get involved with.

02:55 [no dialogue]

Category

Transcript

Recommended