A SPECIES thought to be on the brink of extinction is making a comeback in the Lake District.

A recent study has found that the population of Arctic char, a species that were common in the Ice Age, has increased in Ennerdale Water.

Though the species originally came from the sea, all Arctic char populations are freshwater fish for their whole life cycle.

Factors which range from pollution, water temperature, gravel movement, and blocked migration have been blamed for a decrease in numbers.

Money from fishing licence sales has gone towards a restoration project which has been led by Environment Agency in partnership with Forestry Commission and Wild Ennerdale.

The Ennerdale Arctic Char Restoration project has been set up with the express purpose of boosting numbers in the lake.

The species was on the brink of extinction and the fish found in Ennerdale are thought to be the last spawning in an English river.

Peter McCollough, fisheries officer at the Environment Agency, said: “We changed our usual ways of working this year to ensure a safe work environment but it’s great to see an increase in the population of the Arctic char.

“This project is a great example of how money from fishing licence sales is used to protect and improve fisheries.”

During November, the spawning season, the Environment Agency monitors the unique English char as they migrate into nearby river tributaries.

This year’s survey has shown that char numbers have increased significantly and the project is now in the monitoring phase.

While undertaking this year’s survey, the Cumbria and Lancashire Fisheries Operations teams collected 40 separate samples of the fish’s DNA for the University of Glasgow to study as part of wider research projects into populations.

According to the Wild Trout Trust’s website “there are around 340 separate Arctic char populations in the British Isles and they are often described as ​‘remnants of the Ice Age’ perhaps because of their association with the Arctic and the fact that they populated our waters soon after the glaciers retreated around 12,000 years ago.

“They arrived as sea-run char, and then subsequently lost their sea migratory tendencies, becoming freshwater resident populations."

They mainly occupy the deep lakes of Scotland, Ireland, North Wales and the Lake District.