Heather Beetle - the story so far

Thanks to ongoing support from Heather Trust members and supporters, we've now received thirty seven returns for this year's heather beetle survey, covering a combined total of more than 10,000 acres of damaged heather from Caithness to Powys. All the signs seem to suggest that this has been a seriously bad year for beetle, and several of the outbreaks have been devastating, particularly in Wales. Damage has been found in all kinds of places, from the biggest Yorkshire grouse moor to the  marginal scraps of lowland heath by the Solway Firth. Patterns emerged in Perthshire and the Pennines, with clusters of damage which become obvious when seen on our MAP.

This information feeds into our wider research about heather beetle, and we are extremely grateful to everyone who has taken the time to respond, either by survey form or by phone. Working closely with the Moorland Association, we were interested in the additional information provided by the expanded survey return form, which sought another level of detail on some outbreaks in Northern England.

The expanded survey form looked at several aspects of heather beetle damage, but there was a particular focus on re-wetting and signs that beetle outbreaks might worsened by wetter moors. It was very interesting to explore this theme with some active case studies, and intriguing to find that there was no obvious link between wetter ground and the distribution of beetle damage. Some of the worst outbreaks took place on dry ground this year, and it is hard to correlate indications of wetness with severity of damage. Of course wet conditions may have a direct impact on the rate and quality of heather regeneration in the aftermath of an outbreak, and we are keen to monitor this in the coming months.

In the meantime, if you have found signs of heather beetle damage on your ground this year, please let the Heather Trust know by downloading the Survey Form - we cannot carry out this work without your help, so all survey forms are extremely important to us!