Crayfish poachers caught

kildare lad

You don't realise how happy I am that finally someones been brought to court over the poaching of crayfish. I grew up near that stretch of canal and when we were younger the amount of crayfish you'd see underneath the bridges during the summer was unreal , I used to bring my son up when he was younger and we'd catch a few a pit them back . Unfortunately some eastern Europeans that came to Ireland have little or no respect to any wildlife in the canal and proceeded to empty it out over the years.

Myself and one or two other anglers and locals started confronting them when we were there , sometimes they'd say sorry , other times they'd play dumb...me no speak English , and once or twice we've been told to fxck off home . We've had to get the gardai , the fisheries board and npws all out to tackle the problem . They'd leave loads of chicken drumsticks underneath the bridges and come back later on and scoop all the crayfish out. They'd also leave traps along the canal with chicken or dead fish in them . Then they started going up at nighttime and were spotted using head torches under the bridges.

Unfortunately though I think the damage is already done . I hadn't seen a live crayfish up there all summer . It's a shame that people can't enjoy wildlife without wanting to kill everything they catch.

https://www.thejournal.ie/white-clawed-crayfish-court-5303648-Dec2020/