The Soil Association has launched its ‘Worm Hunt’ campaign, calling on citizen scientists throughout the UK to participate in a unique exercise of worm charming to record results and help create a national ‘worm map’. The unusual event, in which participants dance, or cause vibrations on the ground to attract worms to the surface, has been enthusiastically welcomed by the charity, which plans to take the obtained data and use it to monitor the health of soil across the country. The abundance of worms in an area is taken as an indicator of soil health, and the findings will be used to promote biodiversity and restore numbers of the vital but threatened species.
Worm charming, which originated in England, is also known as ‘worm grunting’ or ‘worm fiddling’ and is enjoyed in other parts of the world such as Texas. The Soil Association sees the exercise not only as a means of celebrating the much-maligned worm, which is critical for healthy soil structure and for removing contaminants, but as serious science, as declining populations of worms across the UK have long been a matter of concern. Studies show that the number of worms has decreased by a third over the past two and a half decades.
The Soil Association is partnering with the well-known Falmouth Worm Charming Championships on the project, which is awarding prizes for the most creative ways of charming the worms. Contest organiser Georgia Gendall is delighted by the public’s positive reaction, saying, “It’s great to see people so excited about worms. We want to use that energy to develop long-term success with the worm map.”
The charity’s head of horticulture and agroforestry, Ben Raskin, said, “It’s all a bit mad, but we’re trying to raise awareness of this vital species. It’s a light-hearted way of doing it, but it’s serious science at the same time.”
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