Signal Crayfish - where to find them?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Crayfish are like fresh-water lobsters, aren't they? Little Cudzo had lobster for the first time yesterday and positively raved about it, said it's his favourite food ever.

[mulveyp]

How far up north have the Single Crayfish got?

[Bledlow]

The Kennet - vast numbers. Did anyone see Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls crayfish hunt in Wiltshire?

crayfish - Canal World Discussion Forums - a proposal for a trap.

Environment agency information sheet on crayfish trapping - rules, risks, etc. http://www.efishbusiness.co.uk/formsandguides/whatyouneedtoknow.pdf

Ecological impact of taking only big ones - and cooking suggestion for small ones -
http://www.riverkennet.org/content/downloads/Newsletter_Summer_2008.pdf

You need a licence, permission from the owner of the waters and/or fishing rights, & there are rules governing traps - anything that might drown an otter trying to eat the crayfish in the trap is illegal, for example. I'd check out any advertised traps very carefully for compliance with the law. It is also illegal to put any Signal crayfish, however small, back once caught, or put them in any other body of water - even your own garden pond. They must be killed. Freezing is a recommended method of killing.

[Crumbling Nick]

How far up north have the Single Crayfish got?

They're definitely around in the Warwickshire Avon & tributaries, where they are a threat to the native white-clawed species.

[Mrs Pingu]

As Pingu said earlier, they've made it north of the border:
Signal Crayfish - where to find them?

[Torslanda]

Is everyone still as enthusiastic about crayfish when you point out they are closely related to cockroaches? 

Every time there's some doco from Padstein or somewhere. Someone picks up a female lobster that's festooned with eggs and the sight of that creature on its back takes me straight back to MiB and the Bug's escape in the cab . . .

I don't mind crab or prawns. I just don't ever want to see what it looked like before it hit the frying pan.

[Torslanda]

. . . and Yes. Come the apocalypse I'll be ****ing useless when it comes to battering bunnies about the head or turning wild fowl into dinner . . .

[noisycrank]

Distribution map

http://data.nbn.org.uk/gridMap/gridMap.jsp?allDs=1&srchSpKey=NHMSYS0000377494

Why they are a bad thing - they eat everything and undermine the banks.

Signal crayfish have a significantly adverse impact on native freshwater flora and fauna in running and standing waters. They can do this by consuming large quantities of plants and invertebrates, and by either predating or displacing amphibians and fish. Signal crayfish can also modify aquatic environments, by burrowing into the banks or rivers and ponds. In ponds, this behaviour can undermine the littoral zone and result in increased turbidity. In running waters, extensive burrows may destabilize the riparian zone, leading to increased rates of bank erosion, the shallowing of streams and the compaction of salmonid and lamprey spawning grounds. The species’ impact on freshwater pearl mussel is unknown but is likely to be significant. The potential for signal crayfish to act as a vector for transmission of diseases within or between catchments cannot be discounted.