Description
Activities to improve the conservation status of crayfish populations and their habitat planned for the three-year period 2024-2026, partly financed with European funds from the LIFE NatConnect project, include
- the extension of monitoring to areas that are still little known
- the completion of genetic analyses of known populations
- the possible reintroduction of crayfish in areas suitable for its presence, where it has become extinct in recent times.
These activities are carried out by the Hydrobiology Research Unit of the Edmund Mach Foundation, under an agreement with the Autonomous Province of Trento, Sustainable Development and Protected Areas Service.
Already in the framework of the LIFE+ TEN project, a crayfish management plan was drawn up in Trentino. The following actions had been implemented in this plan
- monitoring of crayfish populations in Trentino and their state of health;
- conservation and restoration of habitats and populations;
- control of the spread of invasive alien species;
- drafting of good management practices to be shared with the bodies involved;
- dissemination activities.
The crayfish plays a very important role in maintaining the balance of the ecosystem in which it lives, having an omnivorous diet and being in turn prey for fish, birds and mammals.
Unfortunately, like many other species living in freshwater, it has suffered a reduction in the size of its populations in recent years, due to the degradation of aquatic habitats: water pollution, the elimination of typical riparian vegetation and the artificialisation of watercourses are the main causes.
Another source of threat to our crayfish is the introduction of so-called 'invasive alien' species, i.e. exotic species that are particularly well adapted to their new habitat. In Trentino there are two introduced shrimp species: the American crayfish(Orconectes limosus) and the Louisiana crayfish(Procamburus clarkii). These species have a negative impact on the native crayfish, both through direct competition since they use the same resources (refuges and prey), and because they are agents of the spread of pathogens that are particularly dangerous to the native crayfish, mainly a fungus vector of the so-called 'crayfish plague'.
Valsugana webtv report for the Brenta River Reserves Network of 6 September 2024 on the crayfish reintroduction project in the Roncegno Marsh SAC:
The crayfish translocation project in Valsugana (November 2024)
The RAI3 regional news report of 4 November 2024 on the capture of alien crayfish in Lagolo Lake:
See the other activities planned in Trentino within the NatConnect2030 project
