JEREMY Clarkson has been left concerned after noticing a change at his farm this summer.
After spending some time exploring the rolling acres of Diddly Squat Farm, he had an unpleasant realisation.
Taking to X, the TV personality shared that there has been a lack of butterflies fluttering around his fields.
He wrote: “Just been on a walk round the farm and I’m a bit alarmed by how few butterflies there are.
“Something is afoot.”
However, the former Top Gear presenter got defensive when one of his followers advised he stop spraying pesticide on the fields.
They added: “Go organic. In the meantime leave min 3m uncultivated strips on the margins so beetles, insects and ground nesting birds can thrive.”
Jeremy retorted: “We are doing all the right things. Including not going organic. Which doesn’t work.”
Another pointed out that the worrying change has come as a result of climate change, adding: “Human activity is killing the world. That not an exaggeration. We are on the way out and taking a million species with us.”
A hedgehog expert chimed in with an explanation, saying: “We are reaping what we sowed.
“During the lockdowns a lot of people were bored, and took it out on their gardens; hacking and strimming and clearing like never before. Some people even went out and attacked their local green spaces.
“B&Q gardening section made all-time record profits. This meant not only was that year’s food and shelter for the insects destroyed, but all their overwintering places, too.
“Meaning dramatically less insects the following year. And all these new gardeners have kept it up, piling more harm upon harm, year upon year.
“More and more habitat destroyed, more pesticides used, more and more overwintering place obliterated, less and less insects waking up the following year.
“And now we are seeing the results. We’ve run out of insects to kill.”
UK charity Butterfly Conservation Trust reported similar findings to Jeremy this year.
After their annual undertaking where they count the number of winged creatures spotted over three weeks in the summer, the Trust said 12 per cent of their participants saw no butterflies at all in the first week.
The organisation put this decrease down to the cold weather that has plagued the UK this summer.
