The People’s Trust for Endangered Species is asking homeowners to bury buckets of wood chips in their gardens to provide the stag beetle larva a place to eat and grow until it can emerge as a full-fledged beetle.

Intensified farming and the spread of housing subdivisions has had a devastating on the exotic insect’s habitat, and wildlife experts say its population is now seriously threatened.

“Just the fact that people tend to keep their gardens tidier than they used to, with bigger patios and well-groomed beds, is having an effect,” trust spokesman Jill Nelson told the The Observer.

“There is not enough old wood or roots for them to eat.” Stag beetles spend six or seven years growing underground before they emerge briefly to mate.

The giant insects are often the subject of much alarm and hysteria in English gardens and barbecues when a portion of the population emerges each May and June.

Nelson says that while the beetles look menacing, they are quite harmless.

Photo: Maria Fremlin
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