Normally the sort of thing you’d expect to see attached to someone’s face in a Sigourney Weaver film, this creature is, nevertheless, a horror story in its own right, but if you want to know more about it, then I suggest you try Googling “American Signal Crayfish” because I simply don’t have the time to begin even scratching the surface when it comes to this particular ecosystem disaster area!

I will say this though….This riverbank-undermining, fish egg-eating, crayfish plague-carrying monster (this one measured 16cm from the tip of its rostrum to the end of its tail) is the sole reason that Tess and I never work on two waterway systems in the same day and why we nearly always work heading downstream….Such is the devastation potential of this otherwise cute and cuddly crustacean. In fact, after Tess had first drawn my attention to it and I had removed it from the river in order to examine it, I would then have been in serious breach of the law to even attempt to place it back in the water.

So what to do with it? Well, it soon became apparent that this particular specimen was a little out of sorts and so I bagged it, tagged it and took it home, where I placed it in the freezer to kill it painlessly before phoning Nigel, the Boss' UK-based science dude, about it. He turned out to be as interested as I’d anticipated and arranged for it to be picked up and transported via ballistic freezer van to some sort of path-lab up north where it will be examined microscopically by lots of people in white coats and no social life.

Why go to all that trouble? Well, an out of sorts Signal Crayfish has to be out of sorts for a reason and so it’s always worthwhile getting people with lots of letters after their name to take a closer look under laboratory conditions. Failing that, I guess they could eat it!

On the other hand, if you see one then leave well alone. After all, you might be mistaking one of our beloved and increasingly rare White-Claws for its evil Yankee cousin. Besides, you need special Environmental Agency licenses coming out of your ears to even think of messing about with crayfish in the UK and believe me, fines of up to ‘2,500 are thrown about like confetti when people just look as though they’re about to transgress what amounts to UK conservation’s most sacred commandment…. “Thou shall not violate the river of the White-Claw”….and quite rightly!