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possible invasive crayfish in NJ


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#1 Guest_davidjh2_*

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Posted 21 March 2011 - 01:10 PM

I was out fishing on the Millstone river this weekend and while using a dip net in some pools of water leftover from the high water I cam across this really big crayfish and automatically assumed it was a Procambarus acutus since I've caught them in the same exact area before. He's an unusual color but I've seen weird color morphs before as well. I posted a picture of it on Facebook and someone I know from a crayfish forum thought it was a Procambarus clarkii which is not native to NJ. I posted more pictures on the crayfish forum and asked for confirmation of the species since we have a couple of biologists and some extremely knowledgeable hobbyists on the forum. Well one of the biologists our resident crayfish guru named Whitney Stocker identified it as Procambarus Clarkii.

I don't doubt his experience or knowledge but before I contact the NJ Dept of Fish and Game to report a possible invasive species I'd like to get another opinion or two. I can't get to Photobucket from work but here's the thread I started in the other forum.

http://www.bluecrayf....php?f=9&t=2999

#2 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 21 March 2011 - 01:35 PM

The wikipedia page for Procambarus clarkii makes it sound like it could reasonably be found in New Jersey. I mean, it's native to the southern US and some sources even claim the Great Lakes drainages.
It makes sense that as we mess with the courses of rivers and streams to build roads and whatnot, the crayfish (which can walk over dry land if its home is destroyed) might shift range a little. This doesn't have to be an ill intentioned introduction by a crafty crayfish eater, it could just be due to more general human interference.
I am, of course, not an expert, and I don't hate invasive species nearly as much as people keep telling me I should.

Sources:

This source claims only southern US: http://animals.jrank...S-ACCOUNTS.html
"Originally from the southern United States and northern Mexico only..."

Wikipedia claims Great Lakes drainage: http://en.wikipedia....ambarus_clarkii
"The native range of P. clarkii is along the Gulf Coast from northern Mexico to the Florida panhandle, as well as inland, to southern Illinois and Ohio."

Edited by EricaWieser, 21 March 2011 - 01:44 PM.


#3 Guest_davidjh2_*

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Posted 21 March 2011 - 01:48 PM

It is very possible that it's expanded its range Erica. It's northern most range on the east coast is Maryland and that's really not far at all from NJ. It could expand northward into Pennsylvania and move into NJ very easily. It really just comes down to its tolerance for cold weather and evolution could take of that pretty easily.

I'm just really not convinced yet that the crayfish is a clarkii.

#4 Guest_exasperatus2002_*

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Posted 22 March 2011 - 07:13 AM

It is very possible that it's expanded its range Erica. It's northern most range on the east coast is Maryland and that's really not far at all from NJ. It could expand northward into Pennsylvania and move into NJ very easily. It really just comes down to its tolerance for cold weather and evolution could take of that pretty easily.

I'm just really not convinced yet that the crayfish is a clarkii.


Any seafood joints nearby that might get crayfish in for cooking? If it were a hobbyist introduction, I'd assume it should be the blue or white morph (not that someone should be so dumb considering the prices of those morphs). I'd think the reds would be more marketable for the table.

#5 Guest_davidjh2_*

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Posted 22 March 2011 - 07:21 AM

There aren't any places in the area but that doesn't mean much since the Millstone river meanders through a few counties and then flows into a river that goes through a few more. It could have been introduced from just anywhere in Central NJ.

#6 Guest_ashtonmj_*

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Posted 22 March 2011 - 12:06 PM

It's a clarkii. Any aquaculture ponds in the area?

#7 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 22 March 2011 - 01:45 PM

Any seafood joints nearby that might get crayfish in for cooking?

It could have been introduced from just anywhere in Central NJ.

Any aquaculture ponds in the area?

I hesitate to point blame at an individual or corporation when the native documented range is less than a hundred miles away and the whole region is wet enough for the crayfish to have simply walked there. It's not like there aren't enough human disturbances in that region for crayfish to want to head off in search of greener pastures; that's one of the most densely population areas in the United States. My bet is that either it just walked to New Jersey or that the original native range might have been poorly documented and have included New Jersey after all. The only way to resolve this dispute is to compare genetic markers between the crayfish that you found and the crayfish populations in Maryland, the Southern US, Northern Mexico, and Great Lakes drainage. Then you could see where it came from. Without that, this is all just ugly finger pointing.

Edited by EricaWieser, 22 March 2011 - 01:48 PM.


#8 Guest_davidjh2_*

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Posted 22 March 2011 - 03:04 PM

It wouldn't surprise me either Erica. I mean we already have Procambarus acutus here and physically there isn't much of a difference between them and Procambarus clarkii. Even better though would be if it had some characteristics of a clarkii but was actually a whole new species. Procambarus davii :rolleyes:

#9 Guest_fundulus_*

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Posted 22 March 2011 - 06:36 PM

There's a long history of clarkii being spread by aquaculture and related uses, so the simplest explanation would be another introduction via culture. But of course the habitats of the entire Atlantic seaboard are so disturbed maybe it could have walked there without encountering enough predators or competitors. Even so I'm happy to contribute a finger to point.

#10 Guest_hornpout_*

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Posted 22 March 2011 - 09:38 PM

According to one of my favorite sources, PEARL...
http://pearl.maine.e...ayfish_maps.htm
We've got them as far North as Maine.

#11 Guest_fundulus_*

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Posted 22 March 2011 - 10:38 PM

Yes, the species is an extremely effective colonizer. From NatureServe:

"The species has been introduced to Massachusetts (University of Massachusetts campus pond, Amherst) and Rhode Island (University of Rhode Island campus pond, Kingston) (Smith, 2000). Recently it was found at a single in the Catawba River in North Carolina (Alderman, 2005). It has been introduced to all North Carolina river basins in the Piedmont Plateau and Coastal Plain (Cooper and Armstrong, 2007; Simmons and Fraley, 2010). It has been introduced in a variety of aquatic habitats in lentic areas in South Carolina across much of the state (Eversole and Jones, 2004).In Georgia, it has been introduced into a single stream in downtown Athens and a highly disturbed urban stream in Gwinnett Co. and an urban stream in the Etowah River system (Skelton, 2010). In the Cumberland Plateau it occurs from introductions in the Black Warrior River system in Jefferson Co., Alabama. (Bouchard, 1974). In Kentucky, it has a distribution almost identical to Procambarus viaeviridis; known from the floodplains of the extreme lower Tennessee, lower Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers and from tributaries of the Mississippi River in the extreme western portion of the state (Taylor and Schuster, 2004). In Indiana, it was collected in 2000 from Lake Michigan in Indiana and it has spread into the West Branch of the Grand Calamet River (Simon, 2001) and more recently in East Branch Calumet River in Lake Co. (Simon et al., 2005). In Ohio, it was introduced in the western end of Sandusky Bay, a fish hatchery at Denison University, and the Grand River upstream of Harpersfield Dam (Thoma and Jezerinac, 2000). In Missouri, it occurs widely in the Lowland Faunal Region (Pflieger, 1996). In Illinois it is known from lowland habitats in the extreme southern Illinois counties of Alexander, Jackson, massac, Pope, Pulaski, and Union (Page, 1985) and recently the North branch Chicago River in Chicago, Cook Co.; hundreds of km north (Taylor and Tucker, 2005). In Alabama, it is known from the Tennessee, Mobile, Black Warrior, Cahaba, Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Escambia River systems (Schuster and Taylor, 2004) as well as Alabama, Pascagoula, and Tombigbee drainages (Schuster et al., 2008). In Texas, the natural range is throughout the eastern portion along the coastal plain and upstream within rivers that flow from the Edwards Plateau into the Gulf (Johnson and Johnson, 2008). This species has been documented in Cuatro Cienegas, Coahuila, Mexico (Dinger et al., 2005)."




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