American Signal Crayfish Invasion

[BoldBear]

It's not only Signal Crays that have invaded our waters; we have had Turkish Crays in our estate lake for well over 15 or 20 years now.

They came into our lake via a small outlet stream coming from a reservoir a quarter of a mile upstream of us.

 

The story was that a lorry carrying them for restaurants had oxygen problems in their tanks and they got permission from some idiot to put the cages that they were in inside the lorries tanks into the reservoir temporarily; and the eggs escaped and hatched, and the rest is history.

 

The Turkish Crays are as big if not bigger than the Signal Crays and can travel overland when the ground is damp. At night you can find them balancing on tree roots out of the water.

They have longer but narrower claws and don't have the reddish tint on their claws that the Signals tend to have.

 

We used to supply them to a university who were trying to find a way to eradicate them back in the early 90's but nothing came of it.

 

The Turkish Crays can't survive with Signal Crays because of a virus that one of the species carries; I can't remember which one that carries the virus in question.

 

Recently we haven't been catching them as much so maybe they have started to thin out after 15 to 20 years.

 

We were told by the NRA (before the EA) that we were not the only fishery in the country that had the Turkish Crays and that they had also infiltrated into other fisheries around the country over the last 20 years.

Maybe it was the Signals that have probably stopped them from spreading further afield.

 

Recently over the last couple of seasons we have at last seen them declining in our lake so I'm hoping they might have fallen foul of some virus in the water, but only time will tell.

Edited November 10, 2013 by BoldBear

[dant]

Apologies if repeating something others have said as my phone won't seem to let me read all the posts. Hey ho.

The answer to the licensing thing is so simple it beggars belief.

The EA should just impose a size limit.

Go out and find (if you can) an extremely large White Clawed Crayfish.

Anything a set size over your specimen is thereafter fair game where ever you are.

 

The River Waveney on the Norfolk/Suffolk borders had a massive Turkish Cray problem. It's lessened slightly after a massive kill due to the plague.

I remember going to a weir pool and hundreds if not a thousand of shells.

The Turkish are affected by the plague carried by the Signals in the same way the natives are.

 

They're here to stay. I can't ever see them being eradicated..

[Vagabond]

 

The EA should just impose a size limit.

Go out and find (if you can) an extremely large White Clawed Crayfish.

Anything a set size over your specimen is thereafter fair game where ever you are.

 

 

OK for taking adult signals, but t'would be better still if the smaller signals were removed, boiled and eaten before they reached breeding size.

 

 

As others have implied, you don't need a PhD in crayfish morphology to tell the difference from White-claws - a few simple pictures will do

[cannibalspinners]

Think WE should organise a MASS cull ourselves , Get as many of us as possible to catch as many Signals as possible , Dont bother with authorities at All

Could be fun , Get people to post their catches on this forum , See who can do the most Signal cray damage !!!!!!!!

[Ken L]

Think WE should organise a MASS cull ourselves , Get as many of us as possible to catch as many Signals as possible , Dont bother with authorities at All

Could be fun , Get people to post their catches on this forum , See who can do the most Signal cray damage !!!!!!!!

 

Great.

And if for whatever reason, someone isn't catching, they can simply move their plague infected pots to a new water that happens to contain a remnant population of white claw and try their luck there.

 

Oh...

Wait...

[cannibalspinners]

Ok ,Point well taken , What if they were to be line caught only

[Andy_1984]

It isnt going to happen.