Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for August 03, 2013

Uh Oh!

Crawfish at least supposedly makes good eating. Sure he is one but some other family might free another and then the creek becomes their home….

The crawdad won’t live long. It will make some duck a delicious breakfast.

Good lesson here!

They should have kept and ate it. The girls may not want to especially Alix.

Crawdads are native all over the Americas. It can’t be invasive.

They are an extremely invasive species. Here in Arizona it is actually illegal to transport a crawdad/crayfish from one location to another in any manner.

Cute crawdad!!

Ooh, this is a BAD idea!

Oh yeah!

Crawdads do NOT exist everywhere. They are all over the US, but they are places where they do not exist naturally. If you release one, it will be an invasive species. Species, that’s another key. Not all crawdads are the same. Just like releasing the Asian Carp into the Mississippi, it’s a fish right? So how can it be invasive!? The river is FULL of fish! Well, that PARTICULAR species did not exist there before. So even if a creek already has crawdads in it, it may not be this particular species of crawdad, so, invasive species

@.BartJ385, just how do you know who is releasing the crawdad? Their face isn’t in the picture, so it could be anybody. Could be she just opened the jar and handed it back to Alix.

Don’t think invasive species are a problem? Try basing an economy on kudzu.

Actually, an invasive species is any species that has been “introduced,” or brought into, to an area to which it is not native. It doesn’t have to do with growing where it’s “not wanted.” That would be a “weed.”

Wikipedia:“The greatest diversity of crayfish species is found in southeastern North America, with over 330 species in nine genera, all in the family Cambaridae. A further genus of astacid crayfish is found in the Pacific Northwest and the headwaters of some rivers east of the Continental Divide”

So lots of possibilities for an invasive species of crayfish!

NORTHERN CRAYFISH (copied from the 10 most invasive species in Arizona list)

Origin – Canada, south to Texas,west to Utah, north to Montana.Popularly used as bait and for aquatic weed control; Populations have exploded in Arizona due to no natural predators; Arizona has no native crayfish; Voracious appetite for larval fish, plants, and insects can severely harm ecosystems. Dispersal by bait buckets and aquarium discard.

That looks like one happy crawdad!!

Crawdad/crayfish are very invasive. Especially where there are no natural defenses. They were released in a trout lake near here and with in a few years the lake in no longer clear but muddy due to the crayfish eating the vegetation. They ruin irrigation ditches.

I prefer lobster myself… ;) Another invasive species is blackberries: they crowd out everything in their path, especially native plants. They have no redeeming qualities here. Sort of like the crawdad in the stream in the park where Alix and her grandma let go of it. One would hope it was a male and not a female (if they can be referred to as that, I am not familiar with crawdads’ assigned gender). I wonder if Alix will discover how wrong it was to put an invasive species into a local stream. Totally different environment from the lake where it came from…

At my daughter’s place in Wisconsin, wild red raspberries are taking over the edges of the property. She won’t let anyone destroy any of them, and the thorny plants make it very hard to use the back sliding door. (There is only about five or six feet of “back yard” before the neighbor’s yard begins.

One instance of an invasive species shouldn’t be a problem unless it’s an egg-bearing female. But the point is well taken. Leave wild animals and plants where they are. It’s great that kids are empathic and passionate about the natural world, but they need to learn that human interference, no matter how well-intentioned, is disruptive and harmful.

I did it by accident. There was a ground squirrel that crept into the front compartment of my horse trailer where the grain was stored. 300 miles and 3000 feet in altitude later I opened the compartment and out jumped the squirrel. He probably had an interesting winter.