The garden tiger moth has declined by over 90% in the UK since the 1970s, with climate change disrupting the hibernation ecology of its distinctive woolly bear caterpillar.
Garden tiger moth caterpillars experiencing winter warming suffer the welfare cost of metabolic disruption to a precisely timed developmental programme. Larvae that warm prematurely during mild winter spells become active when no food is available and expend hibernation reserves that should sustain them until spring. Multiple warm periods through a single winter impose repeated metabolic costs that can exhaust reserves before genuine spring emergence. The welfare impact at the individual level translates directly to population decline as fewer larvae complete development to adult emergence. The loss of this species from most of its former range represents an irreversible ecological welfare cost.