ELUSIVE bitterns, colorful kingfishers, majestic grey herons, harvest mice, and willow tits, one of Britain’s most threatened resident birds... visitors can spot an array of wildlife in the undergrowth of Fairburn Ings, a nature reserve in Yorkshire, the U.K.

Once a coal mine, Fairburn Ings has been converted into a haven for wildlife during the past 60 years. It is now a wetland and an important site for breeding and wintering birds.

With plenty of open water, reedbeds, grasslands and wet woodlands, the nature reserve is classified as a low-risk site for fires.

However, the extreme high temperatures this summer have dried out the undergrowth and turned the site into a dangerous area. Dry leaves and twigs make perfect kindling.

A wildfire back in July wiped out 16 hectares of the reserve, the equivalent of about 20 football fields of rich ecology. Many vulnerable species fell prey to the flames, smoke and ash.

The fire destroyed countless animals along with their habitats. Those that survived will find it difficult to reproduce and forage, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), a charity with an international reputation, said.

The wildfire will set ecological reconstruction backwards by about 30 years in some areas, said site manager Tom Harman. To make matters worse, he added, soils have been damaged beyond repair, and the consequences are devastating.

Fairburn Ings is just one of many nature reserves that have been consumed by wildfires in Britain.

After the driest July since 1935, drought thresholds have been triggered in several parts of the country, where wildfires have caused four times as much damage as the seasonal average. Hundreds of homes were engulfed in flames, and the impact on wildlife has been massive.

Kathryn Brown, director of climate action at the Wildlife Trusts, said, “The ongoing heat wave and drought have had a devastating impact on wildlife in the United Kingdom.”

Heat waves have also been wreaking havoc across mainland Europe, with many regions enduring record-high temperatures.

Radhika Khosla from the University of Oxford’s Smith School said, “Science makes clear that as anthropogenic global warming increases, extreme heat events will increase in frequency and magnitude.

“We will therefore be witnessing many more extreme hot weather days.”

The lack of water killed dozens of deer in the Sierra de Baza Natural Park in southern Spain and hundreds of frogs around Lac Petrus in France.

With river water levels dropping, badgers have also felt the impact as they were unable to find edible earthworms. Insects could not find moist moss, and dragonflies have lost their natural habitats. Fish have had nowhere to lay their eggs.

“We are seeing the tip of the iceberg only, “Jean-Noel Rieffel, director of the French Office for Biodiversity in the Center-Val de Loire region, told French newspaper Le Monde. “2022 looks like a landmark year in excess mortality of aquatic and terrestrial species,” he said.

“We’re facing a triple crisis (climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss). The three crises are all connected because the planet is one single, interconnected ecosystem,” said Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International.(Xinhua)