The planet is experiencing a new “Silent Spring” of wildlife destruction because so many wild birds have died from avian flu, according to a leading scientist, who said the past year has seen the most significant and sudden loss of birds in decades.

James Pearce-Higgins, director of science at the British Trust for Ornithology, said: “The last time we experienced such large-scale and rapid losses of wild birds in the UK would be the impacts of DDT on birds of prey in the 1950s and 1960s associated with the Silent Spring narrative, or the widespread declines of farmland birds during the 1970s and 80s as a result of agricultural intensification.”