Wildlife take preference

ONCE again wildlife seems to be the greatest concern with Canal & River Trust, its latest being involved with Salford University to secure the wildlife of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal.

Tests are being carried out to ascertain the quality of wildlife habitats and biodiversity on the waterway as the Trust wants to 'improve the wider health of aquatic plants and animals in the canal'.

Eecologists and environment teams

The Trust now has its own team of ecologists, with one of their jobs examining droppings from animals and insects to ascertain the various creatures, and we learn even crushing it to discover what particular animal it came from, we being told they can tell the difference between water vole droppings and bank vole droppings.

Then there is the environment team that examines the litter that gets pulled from the waterways to make sure it hasn't polluted the water that would upset the wildlife, and of course remove any plants that could cause problems whilst at the same time safeguard the non-damaging plants. making sure that these plants are protected.

All of course at great cost—whilst the waterways slowly deteriate through the ever decreasing spend on proper maintenance...