Monitoring confirms stable populations, with habitat improvements expected to deliver benefits over the coming years.

The latest round of Giant Freshwater Crayfish surveys has been completed. These surveys are conducted under the Giant Freshwater Crayfish recovery project funded by the Australian Government’s Natural Heritage Trust to monitor the health of the crayfish population within our project areas. Surveys were performed in areas which had also been surveyed at the beginning of the project. By comparing the two surveys, we are able to get a rough idea of how the crayfish populations are tracking in our project areas as the program reaches its midpoint.

Results indicate that crayfish populations are currently holding steady with the latest surveys showing overall similar numbers to the beginning of the project. These results were expected as although habitat improvement works have been performed in many of the project areas, the works are still too recent for the crayfish populations to respond. As more time passes, it is expected that crayfish numbers will increase as more habitat becomes available.

A 1.5kg female, one of the larger crayfish recorded during the surveys (photo by Tilde Bergstrom)

This project is funded by the Australian Government’s Natural Heritage Trust and delivered by Cradle Coast NRM, a member of the Commonwealth Regional Delivery Partners panel.