Another complete parcel of molluscs

WE’RE in the middle of the Silly Season, so here’s some silly stories to be going on with. No, I’m not talking about the Labour leadership fiasco, which would be the silliest story of them all were it not so serious.

I’ll get round to Labour in due course. But it’s August and the sun is shining — at least for the next few days — so why let politicians cast their dismal clouds over the dog days of summer?

Until then, l et’s celebrate Great British eccentricity, sentimentality, stupidity and bureaucracy — especially when it comes to wildlife.

Regular readers know this column collects daft stories about rare species and the impact of preservation on progress. Many of you will remember Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council, in South wales, spending £190,000 building a special suspension bridge to allow dormice to cross a new bypass near Pontypridd.

work on the road was halted while the bridge was built, along with the construction of 60 dormouse boxes and the digging of new ponds for the relocation of newts and other vulnerable amphibians. I can recall writing at the time that although the idea seemed crazy and the cost excessive, any society which can be bothered to build a bridge for dormice can’t be all bad.

Unfortunately, conservation can be taken to extremes. A few weeks ago, I brought you news that work on a much-needed housing development in an abandoned limestone quarry had come to a standstill after it was discovered that the area was the natural habitat of the Horrid Ground-weaver Spider.

More than 2,000 nature lovers signed a petition claiming the project, which would have provided 57 new homes, could cause the extinction of the spider, known in Latin as the Nothophantes Horridus.

Now we learn that the Planning Inspectorate has upheld the local council’s decision to refuse permission for the work to go ahead, so the frustrated developers will have to look for a new site elsewhere.

Supporters of the Horrid Ground-weaver Spider are claiming a great victory. ‘ what a fantastic result f or wildlife,’ declared Andrew whitehouse, who runs an outfit called Buglife.

So it might be, but what a terrible result for any family hoping to move into one of these new homes.

Now here’s the really silly bit. This could well turn out to be a hollow victory. The spider, which is said to live in cracks in the limestone, has only ever been spotted twice. The last time was in 1995 and it hasn’t been seen since.

So for all anyone knows, it could be extinct already.

Then there was the case of the Depressed River Mussel, which was indirectly responsible for severe flooding in the Thames Valley last year. Hundreds of riverbank homes suffered water damage because the Environment Agency abandoned dredging to save this obscure creature. And to hell with the devastation this single-issue madness would wreak on homeowners.

our planning authorities seem to have a particular soft spot for molluscs of every variety.

For years, drivers have been getting stuck in traffic jams at the Acle Straight, a single-carriageway stretch of the A47 between Norwich and Great Yarmouth, which motoring organisations have been campaigning to have widened.

The stumbling block has been the presence of a colony of Little whirlpool Ramshorn Snails, which haven’t been seen outside East Anglia since the Eighties. Maybe they’re all holed up with the Horrid Ground-weaver Spiders.

This week i t was r eported that plans to widen the road hinge upon whether the snails, which have shells less than a fifth of an inch in diameter, can be relocated successfully.

Fair enough, you might say. But the relocation of the snails is going to take three years, during which time they will be subjected to intensive monitoring.

So it will be 2018 before any decision to go ahead with the road widening can be taken. Meanwhile, traffic will remain at a crawl for the forseeable future, with all the extra greenhouse gases from exhaust fumes that will cause.

what a complete parcel of molluscs. or should that be a complete parcel of escargots?

THIS i s the kind of bio- diversity dilemma environmentalists keep coming up against — in this case the rights of snails versus the hole in the ozone layer. one of the funniest conflicts currently raging around our coasts is the conflict between marine life and off-shore wind farms.

From the North Sea to the South Coast, biologists are warning that the giant wind factories so beloved of the ‘climate change’ fanatics are posing a serious threat to the eco-system.

Apparently, the construction and operation of these unsightly war of The worlds turbines causes extreme distress to dolphins, particularly the low- level hum the windmills emit when they are turning.

The noise and vibration interferes with the sonic communications not just of dolphins, but porpoises, basking sharks and, especially, whales — the poster boys of the Save The Planet movement.

The problem has become so severe that conservationists want safe havens established to protect the marine mammals.

The road to Hell, and all that. It turns out that in building wind farms to save the polar bears, we’re in danger of wiping out the whales and dolphins. You couldn’t make it up. My favourite story this week comes from Llandudno, North wales, where the council recently upgraded the street lights at a local beauty spot, which is popular with members of the l ocal dogging community who gather for alfresco sex with strangers after dark.

Unfortunately, they’ve had to be switched off again because the light from the new high-intensity sodium lamps is interfering with the sex lives — of glow worms.

Amateur naturalist Jenni Cox noticed that male glow worms were congregating under the lamp-posts and ignoring hundreds of female glow worms gathered nearby.

Apparently, when the females are in the mood for love their tails start to glow. (well, they’re not called glow worms for nothing.) But these courting signals were being obliterated by the new street lights.

And although the females were raring to go, the males were leaning on the lamp-posts, presumably smoking, sipping super- strength lager and talking football.

So while the bright lights may have deterred doggers, they also put the glow worms right off their stroke.

I’ve no idea whether glow worms are endangered, but if Llandudno Council hadn’t turned off the new street lights they pretty soon would have been.

And it doesn’t get much sillier than that.