Environment Agency plays, using our money

"Fish carried up a mountain on backs of llamas to escape global warming", trills The Telegraph's "Environment Correspondent" Louise Gray.

You expect the dateline to be 1 April, but no, it is the 12th. And indeed she's lightly rewritten an Environment Agency release.

Derwentwater in Cumbria is thought to be the only remaining site where vendace are found in England and Wales. At our expense the Environment Agency is setting up a new population at Sprinkling Tarn. (Not Sprinkler Tarn, Louise, didn't you read it back?)

But what is this? Commenting at The Telegraph site, "fringe" has discovered that the Environment Agency had the RAF on standby to do this before, back in 2005. Sadly, the plans to airlift 200 fish had to be cancelled because rescuers could not catch them.

But the taxpayer funded Environment Agency didn't give up. Oh no. By January 2006 thousands of rare fish eggs had been transported in special flasks to nearby Sprinkling Tarn during an 11-night operation.

Louise is blaming "man made global warming". Back in 2006, though, the powers that be blamed "poor water quality, the silting-up of spawning grounds and competition from other species".

Of course we know so much better now.

Good, by the way, to see the concentration of taxpayers' money on essential front-line services.