Hopefully we can eat enough of them to mitigate their impact.
They may be delicious, but they’re also invasive.
Texas Parks and Wildlife announced Thursday that several Australian redclaw crawfish were recently discovered again at an apartment complex pond in the Brownsville area.
Labeled an invasive species by the EPA, redclaw crawfish can reproduce prolifically and grow to a significant size, comparable to a lobster, according to TPWD.
They also taste like lobster.
Redclaw crawfish were first detected in the South Texas pond in 2013, according to TPWD. The pond is connected to a nearby water channel.
Collectively, the discoveries are just the second instance of the species being found in the wild in the U.S. The other happened in California.
TPWD Aquatic Biologist Dr. Archis Grubh said he found three additional redclaw in July, two miles away from the apartment pond.
“We don’t know when these invasive crawfish were first introduced or how far they have spread, but we do know they can have a negative effect on local species and biodiversity,” Grubh said in a release.
The problem is that once these things get into the environment, they’re very hard to eradicate, and they wreak havoc on the native species. The main cause of their appearance is very likely people dumping their personal aquariums into a nearby body of water. Don’t do that, y’all. Anyway, I hope we put a lot of effort into catching these things and serving them up in restaurants, but in the meantime if you spot any of them in the wild, let the TPWD know at aquaticinvasives@tpwd.texas.gov.
This could be a boon for boil season.