The Times reports Arctic charr is a rare and ancient fish in Britain, a remarkable survivor of the last Ice Age, but in recent times it has been suffering warming waters and pollution. Now a project has brought the fish back from the brink of extinction at a lake in the Lake District.

The beautiful rose-tinted fish is closely related to salmon and trout. As the great ice sheets retreated about 12,000 years ago it colonised freshwaters in the British Isles and now lives in deep lakes in Scotland, north Wales, the Lake District and Ireland.

The fish needs waters below 8C for its eggs to survive but as waters have warmed in recent times populations have struggled to survive in Britain, apart from Shetland, and many of the native populations have become extinct.