THE survival of the Lulworth Skipper, one of the UK’s rarest butterflies, is under threat more today since records began, the latest research shows.

A scheme run by East Lulworth’s Butterfly Conservation and the Centre for Hydrology shows the skipper, which is confined to the Jurassic Coast, at its lowest levels for more than three decades.

This is despite the fact the numbers of other UK rare butterflies appearing to show signs of recovery after decades of decline, experts say.

Butterfly specialists are concerned that landscape management projects to help other species may be harming the skipper.

Dr Tom Brereton, head of monitoring at Butterfly Conservation, said: “There has been a lot of good conservation efforts over the last decade or so, but the last few years unfortunately haven’t had the weather to go with it.”

Butterflies were badly hit by three poor summers before better weather last year, while a cold winter in 2009/2010 will have helped check parasites and stop butterflies emerging too early, helping the insects breed successfully.

Away from the Dorset coast the wood white, which has suffered a 96 per cent decline since the 1970s, saw numbers increase last year by 600 per cent, while the marsh fritillary, in decline since the 1950s, more than doubled its numbers from 2009 to 2010.

Dr Marc Botham, butterfly ecologist at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said: “Butterflies are highly sensitive to how our countryside is changing and the UK butterfly monitoring scheme data has revealed how butterflies are already impacted by climate change as well as whether our conservation measures are working.”