NEWS

Scottish ordered to kill, but not eat, crawfish

Megan Wyatt
mbwyatt@theadvertiser.com

Crawfish lovers, get ready to pinch some tails. What the Scottish people are doing to our favorite Lenten-time dinner will get your blood boiling.

Anyone who catches a crawfish in a Scottish river is legally required to kill it, according to a weekend story by NPR. An angler sourced in the story recommends crushing live crawfish "beneath a boot."

"It seems cruel to the poor crawfish," says Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne. "We've personalized the crawfish so much in Louisiana, they've taken on human-like features. I guess if they're going to go, it seems like they'd like to go into a pot of boiling water that will thrill some person later than to be stomped on. And if you don't stomp hard enough, it's putting the poor creature through hell."

Some Scottish streams are crawling with so many crawfish that a person cannot cross without stepping on dozens. The North American signal crayfish had been introduced to English waters decades ago and spread north into Scotland, where they have jeopardized the population of prize-winning trout who eat a similar diet as the crawfish.

In Louisiana, people are asking why the Scots don't just cook and eat the abundance of crawfish, but that's something Scottish officials have decided would create a market and further spread the crawfish infestation in their waterways.

Social media lit up this week with Louisianians responding to the NPR story and the crawfish killing happening in Scotland. Some people invited the abundance of crawfish to visit our part of the world for a boilin' party. Other people announced plans for a Scottish vacation.

Stephen Minvielle, director of the Louisiana Crawfish Promotion and Research Board, finds the situation in Scotland comical.

"Those messy little suckers," Minvielle said with a hearty laugh. "They're everywhere, even where you don't want them to be. Let them kill 'em. They'll buy more crawfish from us."

Although the signal crayfish is different than the red swamp and white river species eaten in Louisiana, those found in Scotland are perfectly edible, according to Ray McClain, a professor of aquaculture for the LSU AgCenter.

"I think the regulations are probably a wise move to prevent the transfer of crawfish from one place to another," McClain said. "I don't see that there's any difference in killing them and eating them or killing them to prevent them from spreading."

The signal crayfish were imported to Europe from the northwestern region of the United States after a disease decimated the native European species of crawfish during the late 1800s and early 1900s, McClain said.

At one point, many areas in Europe had a similar crawfish culture as Louisiana, and the demand for crawfish prompted the introduction of the hardier species, the signal crayfish, into the Scottish streams.

"They were hoping that some of their lakes and streams and rivers could be repopulated by this new species, which it has, but not only to the detriment of the native species, but also to the fish populations, and as many nonnative introductions do, these species caused ecological havoc," McClain said.