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Accredited official statistics

Butterfly populations in the UK and in England

Trends in butterflies: habitat specialists and species of the wider countryside in the UK and in England.

Updates to this page

From:
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
Published:
20 October 2015
Last updated:
26 August 2026
Show all updates

  1. Annual update.

  2. Annual update.

  3. Annual Update.

  4. Butterflies Development Plan added.

  5. 2022 release published.

  6. CSV title attachments amended.

  7. Annual update.

  8. Minor adjustments made to ensure all bar charts are visible on pdf statistical release attachment.

  9. New publication including data up to 2020. In addition edits made to the wording on the home page and document titles of the attachments.

  10. some amendments required on one of the charts

  11. Unaccessible attachment removed.

  12. Accessible pdf document added as an additional attachment.

  13. Annual update.

  14. 2018 data published

  15. Updated indicators published for 1976 to 2017

  16. Butterfly trend data up to 2016 published

  17. First published.

Accredited official statistics

Documents

Butterfly populations in the UK and in England

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Trends in populations of selected butterfly species, UK and England, 1976 to 2025

ODS, 78.1 KB

This file is in an OpenDocument format

Details

Butterflies are considered to provide a good indication of the broad state of the environment because they respond rapidly to changes in environmental conditions and habitat management, occur in a wide range of habitats, and are representative of many other insects.

The butterfly population indices have been compiled in conjunction with the Butterfly Conservation, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee.

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