Take a walk on the wild side with the environment quiz of 2024

Elephants never forget – but do you remember this year’s biggest environment stories? Photograph: Jason Whitman/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock

1. 

   What “holy grail” was rediscovered in Britain this year for the first time since 2009?

   1. The ghost orchid, a ghostly white orchid that eschews sunlight and feeds on nutrients from subterranean fungi

   2. The Camberwell beauty, a rare, dark-hued migratory butterfly named after the South London suburb where it was first spotted

   3. The greater mouse-eared bat, of which there appears to exist just one lonely male in a dark railway tunnel in southern England

   4. The red-backed shrike, known as “the butcher bird” for its habit of skewering its prey on spiny hedgerows

2. 

   What should NOT be given priority over people needing new homes, according to Angela Rayner?

   1. Solar farms on good building land

   2. Cows in fields

   3. Newts

   4. Good water quality

3. 

   What did the British government allow several million of to be exported to Russia this spring?

   1. Newt eggs from ponds in Ashton-under-Lyme – Angela Rayner’s constituency

   2. Sperm of Tauros, a new breed of cattle designed to imitate extinct aurochs

   3. Painted Lady butterflies bred by UK butterfly farms

   4. Endangered European eels caught in the River Severn estuary

4. 

   Apart from sewage, the unauthorised release of what is on the rise on English rivers?

   1. Beavers

   2. Bison

   3. Sausages

   4. Mink

5. 

   How can you boost butterfly numbers in your garden or park with one scientifically-proven step?

   1. Sing to the flowers

   2. Let your grass grow long

   3. Install ground-mounted solar panels

   4. Draw up a plan to deliver 10% Biodiversity Net Gain, as developers must do.

6. 

   What has been driven to extinction on rivers in Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Cambridgeshire and why are conservationists celebrating?

   1. American mink – because they had driven water voles to near extinction

   2. American crayfish – because they threatened native crayfish

   3. American catfish – because they were attacking wild swimmers

   4. American pumpkinseed fish – because they out-compete with native fish

7. 

   Two tunnels have been built beneath a road bisecting Greenham and Crookham Commons in Berkshire to help what meet and breed?

   1. Adders

   2. Bison

   3. Wildcats

   4. Daubenton’s bats

8. 

   What returned to Dartmoor after a 150-year absence?

   1. Wild campers

   2. Otter hunting

   3. Pine martens

   4. The Starmer family, who took their first holiday in the region since great-great grandpa Stephen Starmer travelled there by stagecoach.

9. 

   Have you noticed the new Labour government likes to put the rhetorical boot into innocent wildlife? What is an “absurd spectacle” according to Keir Starmer?

   1. Ugly new pylons marching across the countryside

   2. Solar farms on fertile farmland

   3. A bat tunnel claimed to cost £100m to protect rare bats from the HS2 and East/West rail lines

   4. Ken Livingstone’s newt pond

10. 

    Which square of decrepit grass won the inaugural world’s ugliest lawn competition?

    1. The Rose Garden in No 10 Downing Street

    2. Kathleen Murray’s withered yellow grass in Sandford, Tasmania

    3. Stina Östman’s lawn in Gotland, Sweden

    4. Boris Johnson’s croquet pitch at his new Oxfordshire hideaway

11. What has Ivor, a six-year-old spanador, been taught to sniff out?

    1. Just Stop Oil activists

    2. Invasive American mink

    3. Newts, who are forming unions to stop house-building

    4. A fungal-like organism killing trees and shrubs in Britain

12. Which deadly menace was widely predicted to become established in Britain in 2024 but didn’t – probably because it was such a disastrous year for flying pests?

    1. Elon Musk

    2. The cabbage stem flea beetle, which decimates oilseed rape crops

    3. The Asian or yellow-legged hornet

    4. The southern small white butterfly, which munches cabbages

13. A third of UK teenagers believe…

    1. That beavers eat fish

    2. That climate change is exaggerated

    3. That pork comes from cows

    4. That eating meat is unethical

14. What has risen tenfold in England since 2020?

    1. Bumblebee populations

    2. Great-crested newt populations

    3. Biodiversity

    4. Mass deaths of fish on rivers

15. Best in Show at the Chelsea Flower Show was a garden showcasing the glories of what?

    1. Peat

    2. Peat-free gardening

    3. Forest bathing

    4. Beavers

Solutions

1:A - The precise location of the plant is being kept secret to deter poachers, 2:D - Labour has said it intends to overhaul nutrient neutrality laws designed to protect harms done to the environment as a result of construction, 3:D - The eel is a protected species, with the number of elvers migrating into European rivers having declined by 95% since the 1980s, 4:A - The practice, known as "beaver-bombing", has led to the establishment of populations all over the country, and especially in the south-west, 5:B - Even in urban areas, letting grass grow long led to an 18% uptick in butterfly numbers, 6:A - Scientists used drops from the invasive predator’s pungent anal scent glands to lure animals into traps, 7:A - Britain’s only venomous snake has vanished from central England over the last decade because of persecution, habitat fragmentation and the growth of pheasant shoots, 8:C - Fifteen of the creatures have been released and are now being tracked by GPS, 9:C - The tunnel is for trains to pass through, rather than the bats themselves, 10:B - The award celebrates homeowners who prioritise saving water over maintaining a manicured lawn, 11:D - The pathogen Phytophthora ramorum can damage or kill a wide range of trees and shrubs, 12:C - There were still 44 sightings this year though, mostly in the south-east, 13:B - The Center for Countering Digital Hate attributed the finding to the rise of climate denial and scepticism videos on YouTube, 14:D - 216,135 fish were recorded as having perished in this manner last year, 15:C - Designer Ula Maria's garden was inspired by the ancient Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, which means being calm and quiet among trees, breathing deeply and observing nature

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   Congratulations!