Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of the implementation of crayfish barriers in (a) brooks and (b) streams to help prevent the non-anthropogenic spread of established invasive crayfish populations.

The use of barriers as a strategic means of managing crayfish spread is currently not promoted by the Environment Agency (EA). This is because such barriers also impact migratory fish and macroinvertebrates.

As part of Government efforts to prevent the spread of Signal Crayfish, they are listed as a ‘Species of Special Concern’ and is subject to the Invasive Alien Species (Enforcement and Permitting) Order 2019. This means that live specimens cannot be brought into Great Britain, kept, bred, transported, sold, used or exchanged, allowed to reproduce, grown or cultivated, or released into the environment.