As months of drought start to take their toll on central France, conservationists at a nature reserve in the Creuse area are rushing to save the fish from a lake as it rapidly disappears.
The Landes Lake in the Limousin region's largest nature reserve is usually home to a wide variety of animal and plant life including 240 different species of birds.
But since the late spring barely a drop of rain has fallen and the lake has shrunk from an average size of 100 hectares to 15 hectares, and is still falling.
We need your consent to load this Facebook contentWe use Facebook to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Conservationists working with local fish farmers dredged the lake by hand with nets on Thursday, transporting fish in buckets to nearby bodies of water with higher river levels.
So far they have saved 600kg of fish.
The local authorities have issued a drought warning for the sparsely-populated Creuse area, in common with much of central France, and famous rivers including the River Cher have almost run dry.
Restrictions have been placed on water usage and the watering of gardens and sports stadiums, the washing of cars and the filling of swimming pools is banned.
The drought has been exacerbated by hot weather with France experiencing its second heatwave in a month with record temperatures in some parts of the country.
