Endangered white claw crayfish released into pond in Devon

A wildlife conservation charity said white-clawed crayfish, which are an endangered species, have been released into a pond in Devon.

Wildwood Devon, a wildlife park based in Ottery St Mary, said there were only two known surviving populations of the crayfish left in the county.

Education and conversation officer Charly Mead said the creatures, which were rescued two years ago, had been moved into a specifically created site at the wildlife park.

She said 37 of the crayfish had been released into its purpose-built refuge which provided a secure home where the species could “survive and thrive away”.

White-clawed crayfish are listed as endangered on the global IUCN red list of threatened species due to the invasive American signal crayfish.

Ms Mead said the site was filled with natural spring.

“There’s loads of insect life in there which is perfect because crayfish are invertebrate eaters,” she said.

The charity said one of the key stages in preparing the area involved ensuring environmental conditions were “perfect”- including its temperature and water quality.

Ms Mead said: “White-clawed crayfish are really important to the eco system because they’re essentially mini eco-engineers on a very small, miniature scale.

“As well as being a major food source to quite a lot of our river wildlife, they are also essentially river cleaners so they spend a lot of their time going around, eating plants and cleaning everything up.”

She added: “The reason we are doing this project is because there are only two known surviving populations left in Devon.”

As part of its mission to reverse the decline its teams have surveyed rivers such as the Culm and the River Creedy to locate and rescue surviving crayfish.

They were transferred to its specialist hatchery and in 2024 successful mating was recorded in 61 crayfish from these rivers.