This is just….just…ah heck I can’t even begin to describe it. The stupid, it burns.
Here’s the odoriferous essence of this publicity stunt story:
“In addition to the anticipated warming of lakes and rivers, we may also see an increase in the occurrence of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and heatwaves.
“All of these could have an impact on much of the native wildlife in England, especially aquatic species such as the rare and specialised vendace, so we are taking action now to conserve the existing populations.”
So let’s move the animals into the ClimateArk for the “anticipated warming of lakes and rivers”. Eeegads, let’s not wait for the actual data to see if there’s a real temperature problem or not, act now!
The commenters on her blog are having none of it, for example:
ravenscar
Today 09:17 AM
“The endangered vendace, that has been in Britain since the Ice Age, is in danger of dying out as lakes and rivers warm up because of man made global warming.”
Are we to infer man has been warming up the planet since the last ice age?
How powerful must they have been, our ancestors.
This plucky little fish survived the Roman Warming, the MWP, which were warmer – so now, when it is cooler but the fault lies with Mankind? Thus, Global warming is the culprit.
That’s pretty poor logic even from you Ms. Gray.
I think the solution if you’ll excuse the pun can be found in the [lack of] water quality.
And this one….
I’ve understood that the threat to the vendace and other white fish wasn’t so much that the lakes are getting warmer as from eutrophication caused by run-off from fields and the sewage output of towns like Keswick.
They were saying this in the 1980s. Obviously the fertilisation problem must have been solved just in time for global warming. (Or maybe not).
This was the story the Telegraph was running about its demise in 2008;
“No trace of the vendace, a small herring-like fish, has been found at Bassenthwaite in the Lake District despite an intensive search.
The disappearance leaves Derwent Water as the last surviving habitat of the vendace in the England.
Competition from invasive fish species and poor water quality are being blamed for the demise of the rare freshwater fish.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear…
It’s notable that they were still in Derwentwater at the time (largely upstream of Keswick), but had gone extinct in Bassenthwaite Lake ( immediately downstream of Keswick).
Not a mention of any of this in Louise’s cut and paste.
Ms. Gray has been pwned by the purveyors of this story. Read it and weep here.
Here’s the “experts” documenting it all on video:
So here’s the question. After introducing these fish into a new lake, what if they don’t survive? Blame global warming?
h/t to WUWT reader Robert Doyle
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My taxes at work. If I rules Britain, whoever participated in this mad scheme would be introduced to the market PDQ and never allowed back into any government department again.
I wonder who the bright sparks were who decided that these fish were exclusively at risk with any possible future miniscule rise in temperature. Is everything else living in the lake left to suffer it’s own fate or do the greeny dumbos in the local authority have a unique insight into how our micro life systems work?
Martin Brumby says:
April 12, 2011 at 11:26 pm
you’re right – but I was being restrained in my disdainfulness because, the EA has some merits – the River Tyne is much cleaner now for example. Mind you, it didn’t take a giant organisation to work out why it was so polluted in the first place, and the clean up has of course been paid for by the public (directly or indirectly) as water authorities have installed sewage treatment plants, farmers slurry tanks, etc, etc – the cost of which ALL falls on the public on top of the tax money running the EA in the first place.
My beef is with their lack of pragmatism – which is where the rule checking and tck boxing – comes into play. For example, imagine a small petrol station site, next to massive historical gasworks site and the owner of the petrol station has to jump through hoops to ensure no ‘sniff’ of pollution into the environment – but the historic gasworks site is causing all kinds of pollution and is essentially ignored despite the fact that it’s pollutants dwarf any that MAY be caused from the petrol station!
crosspatch says:
April 13, 2011 at 12:03 am
Aren’t those people required to register with the authorities?
Quite! Very funny! But as is often the case, n’er a truer statement is made than that made in jest – and in this case, these same people FORM the bloomin authorities in the first place! LOL
I noticed this idiocy in the paper edition yesterday. I thought April the 1st had already gone!
Tim Woodman says:
April 13, 2011 at 12:36 am
_____
Louise Gray isn’t noted for getting place names and areas correct.
Sure they weren’t hanging with the Bolivians?
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/save-the-cocaine-bolivia-enshrines-law-of-mother-earth/
Many of us Telegraph readers are convinced that Louise Gray doesn’t really exist; it’s just the hack-of-the-day regurgitating the latest daft environmental press-release. There is never any original comment in these pieces.
Louise Gray……Bless her! Over at the Telegraph comments she is know as “Little Miss Cut and Paste”.
Her stuff is so innocuous that she is ignored or ridiculed endlessly. Why an MSN newspaper employs such a lazy journalist is beyond me but I guess she needs the money! Hopefully the inaccuracy in her latest attempt will make her editor sit up and take notice!
Far better the greens keep themselves fully occupied conducting these little acts of insanity rather than finding time to engage in well meaning large acts of insanity that costs lives.
Wonder if they did a section 30 health check on these fish or is the EA exempt from its own rules?
As an angler i pay a yearly fee to fish for course fish to the EA, if this is where my money go’s i might think again about paying it in the future?
If they want to protect fish lets start by prosecuting Eastern Europeans who come to the UK to work and think its ok to take fish for the pot,without a license. try ringing the EA and reporting it and see what happens………. nothing. I do dispair at this country and its PC mentality….
seems ms grayis taking some flak over at her blog, maybe, just maybe people are starting to realise what a con all this really is.
just looked throughms greys other mutterings….its a lots worse than you think
see here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8445732/Record-breaking-April-will-be-a-warm-month-despite-showers.html#dsq-content
look on the bright side at least its consistant BS she spouts
and today another article on the same subject says:
Ancient vendace fish saved from edge of extinction.
Not a word about Climate change, refreshing.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3346740/Ancient-vendace-fish-saved-from-edge-of-extinction.html
I think there mothers had wished thay had used contraception
Its high time that we transported lesser spotted woodpeckers on the backs of pine martens to Scotland
Um . . . . I am sorry this story is a publicity stunt with a sad twist but . . . .
History of Aquaculture. “The cultivation of marine species is also an ancient practice. Ancient Chinese manuscripts from the 5th century B.C. indicate the …”
www7.taosnet.com/platinum/data/whatis/history.html – Cached – Similar
which in around about way tells me that . . . part of how “hue”mans have survived through the centuries, is through a variety of techniques . . . .
In reading history of all kinds . . . a pond was a fine place to keep your fish until you wanted to eat them . . . before freezers, and canning developed . . . . and it seems reasonable, they would stock anything just to see what grew . . . .
Kind of like Squirrels bury-ing nuts . . . .
Are we sure this wasn’t an April 1st video that has only just been spotted?
OK, the moving of a minor and endangered (in the UK, though not in mainland Europe) fish species is a bit idiotic, but would be mostly harmless assuming the place they are being moved to is appropriate. OK, so the fish got isolated in a few small pockets at the end of the last glacial, but they seem to have struggled through for the last 10k years, and our intervention is almost certainly unnecessary but is of little real significance.
The absurdity of the whole thing is that the well known Cumbrian native species the llama was used to transport them. Just makes it seem such a hippy story.
Good for a chuckle though.
There is more to this than meets the eye. It is all about spin. In cricket spin is put on the ball to deceive the batsman about its trajectory. In politics spin transforms policy failure into policy success. The environment agency wants everyone to feel warm and cosy about all it is doing to mitigate the effects of climate change and does not want you to notice that it is doing this because of its failure to protect the environment.
The Environment Agency commissioned a study into the vendace population.
http://www.freshwaterlife.org/servlet/BinaryDownloaderServlet?filename=1134731921235_Bassenthwaite_Vendace.pdf
The study hand-waves at global warming along the lines of, cold water fish probably like to live in cold water; therefore if the water gets warmer sometime in the future, they probably won’t like it.
The real reasons for the extinction of the vendace population in Bassenthwaite were documented as eutrophication from urbanisation and suspended particulates arising, it was thought, from land use changes in the lake’s catchment area. Two quotes sealed the fate of the vendace; “The presence of large amounts of fine sediments was observed on the late 1990’s by underwater video inspections of all known vendace spawning grounds in Bassenthwaite Lake…” and, “Whatever its origins, the presence of this material makes successful vendace egg incubation extremely unlikely.”
So the Environment Agency, having failed to prevent the environmental degradation of Bassenthwaite, dresses the story up as one in which they saved the fish from the effects of climate change.
Shame on the Environment Agency for not fulfilling its statutory functions and shame on Louise Gray for not being a “real” journalist.
Browsing through the comments I note that vendace are (allegedly) “endangered” here but not in mainland Europe.
Hmmmm.
And across Europe, the Great Crested Newt is designated as a European Protected Species and covered by LOADS of regulations and legislation. (Mainly enforced by another useless Quango, “Natural England” but also by the EA).
I believe they are quite rare in Europe. But here in central / northern England, they are about as rare as Blue Bottles. There are literally hundreds of recorded colonies and some have over 1,000 specimens in a colony. It is a criminal offence to touch or interfere with them without a special Natural England licence.
Every year, dozens of developments, big and small, are held up (for a minimum of two years after grant of Planning Consent) whilst specialist Contractors and licenced Ecologists encourage the little fellows to migrate to designated pastures new. (They have to walk. No Llama rides for them!)
Just mention Great Crested Newts to a bunch of Civil Engineers, Developers, or Quarry operators and hear the groans.
I keep asking the Regulators, and the Ecologists “If these little critters are so rare, how come they are so common?”.
If you press them they will say, “well they ARE rare in Europe.”
I point out that cod, mackerel & herring are pretty rare in Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic.
But they just laugh at me.
A tip for anyone interested, is that fish really like newts. I wonder if I can get hold of some of these vendace?
I watched this film clip on a BBC magazine-type show a couple of nights ago. My wife had to speak sternly to me to stop me shouting at the television.
If it wasn’t so ridiculously ignorant it would be funny in a sad kinda way.
It wouldn’t be a good week without some wonderful cut and paste from dear Louise.
These days people like her, all go to a lesser university and do a degree in Media Studies. Over a three year period, they learn how to receive a green press release by email (year 1), Block it with CTRL+A, then copy with CTRL+C, (year 2), and finally find a place in the paper on a dull news day when the sub is calling for FILLER, and CTRL+V to pop it in and fill the hole (year 3). For those who do a masters in a fourth year, they are allowed to add at the front “From our ……… Corespondent”. Fill in the gap as appropriate.
And don’t think I’m being sarcastic, welcome to the world of the dead tree press. Their declining circulation figures tell the real story.
And hot off the Ctrl/V key is the Carbon Neutral Bra.
http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG8445588/Worlds-first-carbon-neutral-bra.html
Mick.
This could end up being another example of “Environmentalists” cutting down a forest to save a tree.
I missed the story earlier that Stephen Brown pointed out at April 13, 2011 at 1:38 am
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/4486024.stm
So the same move, to the same lake, was made some years back. What happened to them? Either they snuffed it, in which case doing it again seems a bit daft. Or they are still there in which case doing it again seems, well, a bit daft.
________________
Just as a backgrounder, for those who really bend over backwards to be fair to these nutters, the species overall is listed as no more endangered than humans. There is controversy among scientists as to whether or not the UK population is a different species based on morphology. (Proper scientific difference of opinion the way it should be – no name calling, no blacklists or calls for imprisonment etc.). If you accept that there are different species of Vendace then (exactly) the same species as found in the UK can be found as far away as the Baltic. However you cut it, it is not unique to the UK. And there are bucket loads of them just up the road in Scotland should you want to repopulate their old English haunts once you’ve cleaned them up.
Llamas on the other hand can no longer be found in the wild.
@ur momisugly Mick J who says: “And hot off the Ctrl/V key . . ”
I like that . . . . very nice . . .
The EA has climate change at the very heart of its corporate strategy, see http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/aboutus/112587.aspx so everything they do is tainted with fake environmemtalism at the detriment of other important work they should be doing. You’ll know what I mean if you’ve ever had the misfortune to hear/read about any of the chairman’s speeches which invariably focus on climate porn.