Crayfish loch lomond

gljnr1983

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I was reading about red signal crayfish invading our fresh waters and that they were mainly down in england.So was thinking if a family from england were to come up to loch lomond for a boating holiday with there boat that they took out an infested waterbody a couple days before without fully disinfecting all the boat, it could start an infestation of the loch .I beleive there is also a large loch in the south of scotland that has an infestation .Anybody want to give there thoughts on it.
 
I think the poster was refering to the fact one has to travel through salt water to get there :)

Tom

If you take your boat out the water transport to loch lomond you dont have to go through salt water infact if you were to take the boat down your river(if you live in england) and up the coast to the leven mouth you would still have to trailer it from the leven mouth to loch lomond because the river leven is not navagible unless in winter flood
 
If you take your boat out the water transport to loch lomond you dont have to go through salt water infact if you were to take the boat down your river(if you live in england) and up the coast to the leven mouth you would still have to trailer it from the leven mouth to loch lomond because the river leven is not navagible unless in winter flood


Been to the Great Glen this year.......... Erm I know how to get there. :p

Tom
 
Are these the same species that have suddenly arrived in the Am... but no one is allowed to eat? :D

It will be, the large crays prey on small crays so us eating all the big crays would cause more small ones that is why they dont want us eating them they have recently got into the river kelvin in glasgow city centre which is down stream from the upper clyde which is infested with them.My theory is they got through the mile or 2 of brackish water to get up the kelvin.
 
.I beleive there is also a large loch in the south of scotland that has an infestation .Anybody want to give there thoughts on it.

I believe it is Loch Ken that has the trouble. I was talking to a friend last week who has a caravan and boat there. From what he said they have the infestation, it's killing off all the fish stocks but they are not allowed to catch them or remove them in case they get elsewhere. How they got there I don't know.
 
I believe it is Loch Ken that has the trouble. I was talking to a friend last week who has a caravan and boat there. From what he said they have the infestation, it's killing off all the fish stocks but they are not allowed to catch them or remove them in case they get elsewhere. How they got there I don't know.

Thats whats making me think even a boat sold on ebay could be a big factor in these crays getting about maybe signs and disinfectant spray pumps at public slips would help if these guys are wiping fish stocks out it is serious enough to merit somthing getting done to stop them
 
Fear not, like most infestation scares it is not as bad as made out. They will proliferate for a few years (of delicious eating) if conditions suit them but soon a viral disease wipes them out again and all returns to normal. Except the Perch grow to humongous size on them so all is not lost!
 
The Mussel farm in Loch Etive has been devistated by the arrival of non indiginous species.I believe barnacles were non indiginous in Britain, and that they arrived here on the floats of seaplanes.I also believe that modern ships now treat their ballast water with UV light to kill off anything before the water is discharged.This is a very real problem,you only have to look at the rabbit and pig problem in Australia to realise this.They were both introduced into that continent.
Cheers
 
I believe it is Loch Ken that has the trouble. I was talking to a friend last week who has a caravan and boat there. From what he said they have the infestation, it's killing off all the fish stocks but they are not allowed to catch them or remove them in case they get elsewhere. How they got there I don't know.

Loch Ken is hoochin' with the the things. As well as killing off game fish stocks they have been burrowing into the banks causing erosion.
There is nothing to stop you eating red signal crayfish, but a licence is required to trap them and the likelyhood of getting a licence depends on where in the country you are. A licence will be denied if there is a surviving population of native crayfish (white-claw) and/ or if the red signals have just started gaining in number.
Big males are more likely to be attracted to trap bait than females and juveniles. As the mature males eat the young ones trapping them removes a predator.
In the South of England licences are more freely given because its too late - the white claws have gone and populations of red signals are out of control.
 
Regardless of how/where you move (trail) your boat, the greenblue says you MUST wash down thoroughly to stop migration of all sorts of nasties including weed.
Nothing new, just common sense - who wants to drag a stinking hull around anyway?
As for the rest of us who sail from place to place, it's in our interest to have a slick clean hull, so we clean it when neccessary anyway.
 
Wouldn't the salt water kill it in the meantime? BTW, Crayfish are delicious, catch by the net load and make a crayfish gumbo :cool:

But the miserable scrotes at the environment agency wont let you catch them in our local rivers. They have a bueaucrats view that this shouldonly be done by authorised ]extermination contractors! Which they then dont employ

idiots.


P.S. I suppose you could say there is a symmetry in this. They get imported American crayfish from England and we get Jimi down south.
 
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