Crusty the terrapin terrorises Wigan

It has attacked some of Wigan's finest grebes and is feared to be chomping its way through the town's population of rare great-crested newts and ducks. But help was at hand last night in the search for a three-foot terrapin deemed persona non grata by local naturalists.

The offending North American Red Eared Terrapin has been named Crusty ("because he looks like a meat pie").

Countryside rangers had been receiving a call a week reporting the presence of "a giant turtle" before a local naturalist, Jayne Simon, caught sight of it attacking a grebe's nest earlier this week. As she got closer, she found that it was a reptile "the size of a dinner plate".

Graham Workman, a countryside services manager, identified it as a terrapin, perhaps up to 15 years old. How to catch it is another problem.