Fishing enthusiasts know many ways to bait worms, but the people of the English village of Willaston in Cheshire have turned it into an original sport, Deutsche Welle reports.
The Worm Charming Championship has been held here every year since 1980. Local resident Tom Shufflebotham set a record by catching 511 worms in just half an hour on July 5, 1980. This peculiar championship involves a set of eighteen rules. For example, each competitor is allocated an area of no more than 3×3 metres, or that you can use music to lure the worms, but you can never use stimulants such as water.
Last year, in the British town of Falmouth, Cornwall, participants in the annual Worm Charming Championship lured 260 invertebrates to the surface of the earth with music and dancing and broke the record.
The spellers attracted the worms in a variety of ways, including playing musical instruments, tapping the ground with garden tools and other objects, and dancing. In total, the contestants managed to lure 260 worms in half an hour. The team that collected 20 worms using a large drum and a variety of garden tools won the competition. The participants set a new Falmouth record.
Worms are vital to the soil. Soil with worms is thought to be 90 per cent more efficient at absorbing water.
However, due to pesticides, excessive drainage and the use of inorganic fertilisers, the worm population seems to have declined. A recent study found that earthworm populations have declined by a third in the last 25 years.
