LITTLEJOHN

REGULAR readers will need no reminding that this column collects daft stories about rare species and the impact of preservation on progress. Over the years, I’ve brought you a catalogue of construction projects which have been disrupted by the need to protect an assortment of obscure molluscs and creepy-crawlies. There was the bypass on the A47 in Norfolk delayed by the presence of a colony of Little Whirlpool Ramshorn Snails, said to be close to extinction. A housing development in a disused limestone quarry in Plymouth had to be abandoned after it was identified as the natural habitat of the Nothophantes Horridus, aka the Horrid GroundWeaver Spider. In North Wales, new high-intensity street lights installed at a beauty spot popular with members of the dogging community were switched off because they were interfering with the sex lives of glow worms. While these stories always raise a chuckle — and give Gary a wealth of material for his brilliant cartoons — they can also be a source of frustration and anger when they elevate the rights of arachnids and related pond life above those of humans. Consider all those people in the Thames Valley who were flooded out of their homes because the Environment Agency stopped dredging to protect the Depressed River Mussel. Residents of Aberaeron in Wales are now facing a similar threat after a plan to build a sea wall was scrapped because it would disrupt the natural habitat of the Marine Honeycomb Worm, or Sabellaria alveolata — to use its Latin name. We keep being told that Britain’s coastal defences must be upgraded urgently because of ‘climate change’. But clearly not if it inconveniences the Marine Honeycomb Worm. So homes and businesses face a real risk of being sacrificed, with all the human misery and expense that would entail, to save a species few people even knew existed. Conservation is a laudable pursuit, but can’t they just scoop up the worms, relocate them or create a new home for them in an aquarium? They could always share a tank with the Depressed River Mussels.