White-Clawed Crayfish

White-clawed crayfish survey

• Habitat assessment involving evaluating the potential value of river habitats for crayfish
• Presence/likely absence surveys using manual searches, sweep netting and torchlight surveys
• Trapping using funnel traps under license from the relevant SNCO (Statutory Nature Conservation Organisation)
• Monitoring surveys

Impact assessment

• Identification of potential direct and indirect impacts, both at the site level and in a wider perspective: risks of disturbing, injuring or killing white-clawed crayfish, habitat modification, loss, fragmentation or isolation, post development interference impacts and poor data situations or ‘last minute discoveries’.
• Quantification of potential impacts in terms of extent, magnitude, duration, timing, frequency, reversibility and cumulative effects.
• Strategic advice on project feasibility.

Licences

Preparation of licence applications to permit otherwise unlawful acts in relation to white-clawed crayfish.

Mitigation

• Precautionary working method statements
• Tool box talks
• Ecological clerk of works role
• Receptor site selection
• Habitat design plans including channel improvements and aquatic and emergent vegetation planting
• Relocation of white-clawed crayfish to a suitable habitat prepared in advance
• Mitigation management plans