Some of Britain's best-loved wildlife is in imminent danger of extinction, conservationists and zoo directors were told at the international conference at Bristol Zoo yesterday.
The conservationists called for greater co-operation between international zoos to ensure the survival of wildlife endangered by pesticides, building work, erosion and pollution.
Dr Robert Stebbings, a scientist at the Institute of Terrestial Ecology, highlighted the fate of the last remaining Myotis myotis, or mouse-eared bat, which eked out a solitary existence in a Sussex wood.
The death of the bat, with its 17-inch wing span making it the biggest in Britain, will mark the end of the species in this country. A further 12 of the 15 species of bat in Britain are also in serious decline.
Dr Elizabeth Andrews, a co-ordinator with the Vincent Wilelife Trust, fo London, singled out the otter population as also being in decline.
The sand lizard, the most endangered of Britain's 12 species of amphibians and reptiles, is also seriously threatened by the continued erosion of sandy heathland.
Dr Jeremy Thomas, a butterfly expert, of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, said more than 40 of Britain's 55 species of butterfly were "living on a knife-edge".
However, in a rare conservation success story, the conference was told of the Lake District population of peregrine falcons, once down to one or two pairs, which is now the most thriving in the world, with figures 200 per cent higher on 50 years ago.
