WIREDGOV

Thursday 19 May 2011: The Environment Agency was breeding native crayfish at its fish hatchery near Brecon. Agency experts are also searching the country for suitable sites to release them – where they are safe from American crayfish and human disturbance.

Hundreds of native crayfish are to be released by the Environment Agency at a secret site in Cornwall, to help slow the rapid decline of the species.

White clawed crayfish, which are native to the UK, are now seriously endangered, thanks to the spread of their cousins from across the pond – the much larger and more aggressive American signal crayfish. American signal crayfish not only drive out native white clawed crayfish as they compete for food and habitat, but also carry a water-borne fungus which is fatal to our native species.  It is predicted that white clawed crayfish could become extinct in the UK within decades if efforts are not made to protect them.

Breeding native crayfish

To help ensure that the species does not die out completely on these shores, the Environment Agency in Wales is now breeding native crayfish at its fish hatchery near Brecon. Agency experts are currently searching the country for suitable sites to release them – where they are safe from American crayfish and other threats, such as fishing.
 
Environment Agency Wales officer Oliver Brown said: ”The juvenile crayfish in our breeding unit at Cynrig have thrived beyond all expectations. Our 75 per cent survival rate meant that we released a number of crayfish at a site in Wales last year to allow room for the others to grow.

“We are now searching for new safe havens across England and Wales for crayfish populations, and hope to take our breeding programme further so that ultimately we can release more of this threatened species back into the wild.”

Preserving other endangered species

The new crayfish programme is one of several projects that the Environment Agency has undertaken to help preserve endangered species in the UK.  Last month the Agency moved 25,000 Vendace, a fish that has lived in the UK since the ice age, to cooler waters up a mountain in Cumbria, to safeguard them from the warming effects of climate change. It has also bred pearl mussels – another endangered species that has been around since the ice age – to release into rivers in Northumberland.  And populations of the once critically endangered water vole are on the rise again following Environment Agency efforts to improve habitats and the release of hundreds of captive bred voles back into the wild.

Head of  Fisheries and Biodiversity, Geoff Bateman, said: “We are taking action now to conserve the existing populations of some of the UK’s most endangered species.

“With the increasing threats of invasive species and the warming effects of climate change we’ll be taking more steps like this to ensure that species native to the UK survive into the future.”

On 19th May 2011 the Environment Agency, Buglife - the Invertebrate Conservation Trust is launching a new crayfish website for professionals and members of the public. The new web resource will enable different organisations to co-ordinate their crayfish conservation work so that more populations can be saved.

Further information