Tourism nearly killed off the Arctic char. Now it is thriving again, says John Sheard
By JOHN SHEARD
FOR a leftover from the Ice Age, it still tastes pretty good: a cross between salmon and brown trout with succulent orange-pink flesh.
It has been a delicacy in the Lake District for centuries. But five years ago, the Arctic char, deep-water denizen of Lake Windermere, seemed doomed, unable to cope with 20th-century pollution although it had managed to survive 10,000 years since the last glaciers retreated from northern Britain.
Now, however, Windermere's char are again breeding like fury, their numbers having virtually tripled in barely five years after a campaign to clean up sewage being pumped into England's largest natural lake from the popular holiday towns of Windermere and Ambleside.
In the words of Prof Alan Pickering, acting director of the Windermere-based Institute of Freshwater Ecology: "I feel that we can look upon this as a major conservation success.
"In the 1980s, the char seemed to be heading towards extinction. Now, thanks to all interested parties working closely together, this unique fish is breeding well again.
"This is very important news, not only for the Lake District tourist industry but for pure science, too, because genetically, the Windermere Arctic char is a very special fish."
Like salmon and trout, the Arctic char is a member of the salmonoid family and it is found mainly in the Scandinavian far north, where some members of the family migrate to sea for part of their life-cycle.
In the Lake District, however, they are land-locked, trapped by the legacy of the last Ice Age. Here they have developed their own distinctive lifestyle - so distinctive, in fact, that genetically there are two species of char in Windermere itself, breeding at depths of up to 200ft in two separate basins divided by shallows opposite the busy lakeside town of Bowness.
And it is because they live in such deep fresh water that they became at risk from a complex chain reaction set up by phosphates in treated sewage pumped into the lake from plants which were considered at the time to be highly efficient.
The trouble was that development on the lakeside in recent decades and a vast increase in the number of tourists to the area greatly increased the amount of treated sewage and the phosphates it contained, chemicals which, ironically, enriched the lake to bring about a reaction known as eutrophication.
Like fertiliser spread on a garden - which often contains large amounts of phosphates - the chemical discharge caused plant algae in the lake to "bloom" at an enormous rate. When these tiny plants died, they sank into the lake's two deep basins. There they decomposed, a process which stripped the oxygen in the cold, clear water where the char breed.
For centuries, local fishermen have fished the lake for char from open rowing boats, trolling behind them heavily weighted brass lures which the predatory char attacked. Those fish, with their distinctive colouring and flavour, fetched good prices in the scores of hotels and restaurants which dot the busy inland tourist resort.
But by the end of the 1980s, char catches had dropped off dramatically and alarm bells began to ring. The Institute of Freshwater Ecology, based on the lakeside near the Hawkshead ferry terminal, began to investigate a possible disaster right under its nose.
The institute linked up with the National Rivers Authority and North West Water, the sewage authority. Dr Malcolm Elliott, one of the institute's leading scientists, constructed a highly accurate echo-sounding device which could pick up small fish at depths of up to 200ft, a task made more difficult because the waters of Windermere split into layers according to temperature, separated by barriers known as thermoclines which can distort echo-sounder pulses.
But with the new device in operation, the facts became clear: although there was still a reasonable population of adult char - a good fish can weigh more than 2 lb and be 10 years old - the numbers of immature char were critically low.
"Without being too alarmist, if that situation had not been improved, the species would have been heading for extinction," says Prof Pickering.
Phosphate pollution was judged to be the cause of the problem, so scientists from the institute, the NRA and North West Water began searching for a remedy. At one stage, water board chemists experimented with ways of combining phosphate discharges with an iron solution which could be separated from the discharge by using giant magnets.
Although successful, this proved to be extremely expensive so water board chemists came up with a method of using ferric sulphate which filters out 50 per cent of phosphates in the effluent. This system was installed at three Windermere treatment plants and constant monitoring of the results has been going on ever since.
Those results are now being tabulated at the freshwater institute and will be presented in an official report which is due to be released in the next few weeks. The report will show that the number of immature char in the Lake has increased between 250 and 300 per cent in less than four years - "A result which we feel we can look upon with some pride," said a spokesman for North West Water.
The news of the char's spectacular recovery comes just before the fishing season opens on March 15 and is a major fillip for local anglers. Because the fish is so sought-after by hoteliers and restaurateurs, it can command prices of up to £5 per lb, more than locally caught wild salmon.
Although char fishing on Lake Windermere is free, a hire boat is essential and the unusual tackle requirements are expensive; at the same time, because two rods are used, the fishermen must buy two NRA trout licences at £15 apiece.
Now, however, with stocks up again and fish fetching high prices, it should not be difficult to overcome those extra costs.
So this year, Arctic char should be back on the menu in Lake District hotels - for, as Prof Pickering explained: "The traditional fishing methods for char have very little effect on the overall fish population and it is only right that the local trade should enjoy a spin-off from all this research and capital investment."
