Crayfish project gets underway

Volunteers become citizen scientists

Almost 50 volunteers from across the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and further afield attended crayfish survey training organised by the Culm Community Crayfish project in March and April.

Led by crayfish specialist, Nicky Green, the day-long training sessions covered

It’s fantastic that so many local people have come along to our training and have volunteered to help us survey the river this year, without volunteers the project couldn’t happen so we are extremely grateful.

Crayfish surveys on the River Culm and its tributaries will start at the end of this month.

Crayfish surveys start

After what seemed a long, cold and wet winter the Culm Community Crayfish project’s survey team recently started crayfish surveys.

The team of AONB staff and volunteers, led by specialist Nicky Green, are initially looking for the non-native, invasive, American signal crayfish, before turning their attention to native, white-clawed crayfish in July.

After months of planning it’s great to be out on the river at last. We have started on the Madford River which is a tributary of the Culm. We are doing a combination of hand searches (looking under rocks), kick sampling with nets, and using artificial refuge traps that will be checked a number of times. We are extremely grateful to all the landowners along the river that have given us permission to survey their stretch of river.

If you are interested in helping with surveys please email James Maben: james.maben@devon.gov.uk