Crayfish Questionaire - Help Required

Morning All,

I've been asked by an academic from the University of Leeds to help get anglers to answer a questionaire about how Crayfish can and have affected angling venues. Please read the below information and give the questionaire a whirl. It would be greatly appreciated. Theres also the possibility of getting a few quid!

Cheers Paul

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Crayfish research – your help needed!

Numbers of the UK’s native crayfish have declined considerably over the last few decades due to the introduction of the North American signal crayfish in the 1970s. The larger North American crayfish compete with the native crayfish for food, and also carry crayfish plague which is fatal to the native crayfish. At the moment, we have no effective way of controlling the North American crayfish or the plague that it carries. If the North American crayfish and the plague continue to spread, our native crayfish may become extinct within the next 30 years.

In the absence of any other form of control, the only way we can reduce the impact of these American crayfish and crayfish plague to native crayfish is to ensure that we do all we can to prevent its further spread. As part of a research project at the University of Leeds, we are seeking your help, to try and get a better understanding of current fishing practices, so we can identify possible ways in which the spread of the North American crayfish and their plague could be reduced.

We are therefore asking anglers such as yourselves to complete our questionnaire to find out about the rivers you they visit and the kit that you use at each site. Your help will enable us to see whether there are any areas where the risks from invasive species such as the North American signal crayfish are likely to be greatest. This will allow awareness campaigns and preventive measures to be targeted to those areas to prevent future outbreaks.

Click here to take part: http://goo.gl/sfqIc

The questionnaire takes 5 - 10 minutes to complete and everyone who completes it can enter a prize draw to win a £50 voucher for AnglingDirect online tackle shop.

For more information, please contact Lucy Anderson at the University of Leeds bslga@leeds.ac.uk

Done :thumbs:

Completed, although some of the questions weren't as complete as I'd have liked.

Done it but not convinced this survey, which is poor and looks like an under grad survey, is attempting to lay the blame at the spread of Signals at the door of angling.

It fails to to get to grips with other matters such as inland boat movement from region to region carrying the lava in ballast water a known vector.
The deliberate seeding of waters by crayfish trappers for commercial purposes.

Trout Farms movement of stock from one farm to another containing lava and their river out flows.

The general public deliberate or accidental movement of crays and or larvae.

The bad one said:

Done it but not convinced this survey, which is poor and looks like an under grad survey, is attempting to lay the blame at the spread of Signals at the door of angling.

It fails to to get to grips with other matters such as inland boat movement from region to region carrying the lava in ballast water a known vector.
The deliberate seeding of waters by crayfish trappers for commercial purposes.

Trout Farms movement of stock from one farm to another containing lava and their river out flows.

The general public deliberate or accidental movement of crays and or larvae.

Click to expand...

Couldnt agree more.

Also, the background information supplied in the first post is already about 15 years out of date. Native crayfish are already regionally extinct across most of southern England and the Midlands - certainly so in rivers.

The emphasis of the questionnaire (which is deeply annoying to complete- hence i gave up) appears to be looking at how much anglers could be transferring the crustacean or its disease on nets etc etc.

The places i know where the signal populations spread from were either trout fisheries or other lakes where signals had been introduced, probably by crayfish trappers or landowners. Spread through all interconnected river systems then follows, irrespective of whether or not anglers dry their nets or whatever between trips etc. I know this has nothing to do with anglers because there are watercourses that are never fished where this happens. Once in a river system, all parts of the catchment will eventually become colonised - may take 10 years, but this a tiny length of time in ecological terms.

Relict native crayfish populations are frequently eradicated by drought when those difficult to reach upper parts of a catchment dry-out. So whilst signals wipe out the rest of a catchment, the few refuges for native crayfish then get affected by low flows/abstraction issues.

At least it's a start. Let's hope there's more to come.

...or does the cynic in me think it just might be a way of Angling Direct adding to its contact database

TBO
The e-mail I received did focus on canoes and kayaks.

"We are therefore distributing questionnaires to anglers as well as canoeists and kayakers to find out more about the rivers that they are visiting and the kit that they are using at each site. This will enable us to see whether there are any areas where the risks from invasive species are likely to be greatest so that awareness campaigns and preventive measures can be targeted to those areas to prevent future outbreaks"

Like COTB I gave up. Maybe it did put some emphasis on paddlers for transferring the crustacean. its and other diseases?

I suspect that this project may be supported by a donation from Angling Direct, if so I thank them.

As concerned anglers I don't think we should not slam the door on someone who is trying to do something that may help our waters recover from this alien.

It may be of interest to all southern anglers that long-term Crayfish project is being undertaken by a PhD graduate on the Crayfish populations in the rivers of Hampshire and some native Crayfish have been clearly identified...... so all is not lost!

mick b said:

I suspect that this project may be supported by a donation from Angling Direct, if so I thank them.

As concerned anglers I don't think we should not slam the door on someone who is trying to do something that may help our waters recover from this alien.

It may be of interest to all southern anglers that long-term Crayfish project is being undertaken by a PhD graduate on the Crayfish populations in the rivers of Hampshire and some native Crayfish have been clearly identified...... so all is not lost!

Click to expand...

So what's his Phd question he's looking to answer?

It fails to ask some obvious questions about the anglers experience with crayfish Including how anglers think they spread

The presumption is clearly that anglers have helped them spread with their tackle.

It ignores spread by wildfowl, mammals and water courses. Anyone who has seen tiny baby crays hanging on to their landing net will realise its dead easy for them to hitch a lift on a bird or animal and to make their way through any water course.

Asks what waters you fish but not the level of crays in those. In the waters I fish there are normally tons but over the last year numbers have been massively down on previous years.

It also asks if you use crayfish as bait when that is illegal !

Far too subjective for a "survey" The researcher could and should have done a lot better