Killer carp eat our dragonflies

A CORRECTION is needed to one element in Teddy Thornhill's email (Could have saved), writes Allan Richards.

It was not the Waterways Trust that were given £1,000 to remove the 'killer fish' from Caen Hill locks. The Waterways Trust actually gave BW £1,000 towards the cost of removal!

Publicity stunt

In retrospect, the removal of large fish from Caen Hill came at a time when BW were losing a massive amount of our money due to property speculation. What they needed was some good news, and the removal of fish from the Caen Hill flight was, it seems, manufactured to provide just that.

BW claims that over 30 reporters attended a media day in connection with this project. They went away with differing views as to why it was being carried out with most saying it was because large fish were eating the dragonflies.

As Times Online put it: The fish not only eat the dragonfly larvae, they consume the plants which oxygenate the water and tie down the silt.

Just started breeding

However, had the journalist had read his own newspaper from June 2008 he may have been able to ask BW some very embarrassing questions because a rare variety of dragonfly had just started breeding at Caen Hill!

The article said: A scarce chaser dragonfly found for the first time at the Kennet and Avon canal locks near Devizes, Wiltshire, is thought to be just one of the new species coming to Britain from Europe because of climate change. Steve Covey, the county recorder for odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) said that as temperatures rise dragonflies are using habitats they had considered to be unsuitable: "At Caen Hill I found young newly emerged scarce chasers, which indicates they are actually breeding there."

Cost

So how much did this publicity stunt cost us? Nothing, according to Robin Evans who claims it was paid for by a Waterways Trust donation of £1,000 and Thames Water who purchased the removed fish for the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal. Perhaps he should have told Times Online who reported: The evicted fish are being relocated to other parts of the canal network, some locally in Wiltshire and others to the Grand Union Canal in Hertfordshire. The carp will be used to stock angling lakes.

Double draining

BW admit that they are underfunding maintenance of the canals by about £30m a year. They are having some trouble telling us how long this has been going on for, yet would have us believe that the waterways are in the best state ever, and that they are making every penny count. Draining pounds twice in twelve months is not making every penny count, neither are publicity stunts.

As Teddy says in his email: 'The dragonflies just had to be saved straight away." Obviously so, otherwise BW would not be able to have a media day.

But did the dragonflies really need saving twelve months ago? Probably not!