A nest containing up to 5,000 of England's rarest ant species has been stolen from a nature reserve in Devon, a conservation charity has said. Devon Wildlife Trust described the theft as reckless and said it sets back years of conservation work aimed at protecting the narrow-headed ant.
The nest was dug up and taken from Chudleigh Knighton Heath nature reserve in south Devon. The site is the last place in England where the species still exists, so the loss of a single colony carries particular weight for the survival of the species in the country. The trust's statement made clear that the colony was not a minor population but a substantial part of what remains.
The narrow-headed ant is a small, rare insect that depends on the specific conditions of lowland heathland. Colonies of this kind build nests in open, sunlit ground with sparse vegetation, and the habitat has been shrinking across much of southern England over the past century as heathland has been lost to farming, building and the spread of scrub. The Chudleigh Knighton Heath site has been managed to keep those conditions in place, and the trust has invested years of effort in restoring and maintaining the ground that the ants need.
Conservation staff at the trust have described the theft as an act that undermines that work at its foundation. Removing a nest of this size does more than reduce one colony, because it disrupts the population at a site that has no other known English equivalent to fall back on. The charity has not, according to its statement, identified any suspects, and it has framed the incident as a serious loss to a protected species at a moment when its numbers in England are already extremely limited.
Wildlife crime of this kind is difficult to detect because the damage is often done quietly and the removal of an insect nest may not be discovered until later monitoring visits. The trust's account suggests that the digging was carried out at the site itself, leaving the heath disturbed in the process. Reserve staff and volunteers are expected to continue monitoring the remaining ant populations on the heath as the charity assesses the full impact of the theft.
Source: theguardian.com
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