Polar Cow

Great moments in environmental reporting:

The presenter of ITV's West Country breakfast bulletin informed astonished viewers that an animal more commonly spotted near the North Pole had turned up in the seaside town of Bude. Video footage showed a large, white beast lying on the shore.

"A walker in Cornwall has caught an extraordinary sight on camera. A polar bear has washed up on a beach near Bude," an excited Miss Lloyd said. "The bear comes from the Arctic Circle and an investigation is under way as to how it could have ended up there."

Alas for Miss Lloyd, the tale of the Cornish polar bear turned out to be several thousand miles wide of the mark.

Closer inspection revealed that the polar bear was, in fact, a cow. The farm animal had been bleached white by sea water.

Red-faced bosses at ITV dropped the item from later bulletins, but insisted that it was an easy mistake. "The animal caused quite a stir in Bude. Several people has seen the animal from a cliff top and thought it was a polar bear," a spokesman said. "Its size and colour and its lying position on the beach did make it look like a polar bear and we had several calls.

"But on closer inspection we discovered it was a cow. The tide was very strong and it did bring several dead animals in along that stretch of coast."

I've got to admit, it does kind of look like a polar bear in the picture.