Are there crayfish in Northern Ireland ?

[Robbi]

As the title say's really

i've not heard of them over here, does anybody know different ?

 

[Stew]

Hhhm, I have no idea what the answer is but I do remember someone posting a mapping website that showed the spread of various species, Signal Crayfish included;
I would be interested to see it again, having moved house a while back....
I'll have a little search but if anyone else knows it...

 

[Robbi]

all info gratefully recieved

 

[Bushwhacker]

I don't know, but I can well imagine they will be at some point in the future if they aren't already.

 

[Harvestman]

A quick bit of google-fu produced the following:

There are native white-clawed crayfish in NI, mainly to the south-west. They are a protected species and cannot be captured or eaten.
There do not appear to be any Signal crayfish (the non-native species generally eaten by bushcrafters) in NI.

I haven't checked, but I doubt there are any other non-native crayfish species in NI, as they are not as widely distributed as the signal crayfish

 

[Robbi]

thanks for that, guess i'll not be buying any crayfish traps and time soon