Turton’s Creek Crayfish Survey

We were lucky enough to be invited by the South Gippsland Landcare Network and Ecocentric Environmental Consulting to undertake a survey for spiny and burrowing crayfish in Turton’s Creek.
We used a range of survey methods for spiny crayfish including dip-netting, bait-reaps and backpack electrofishing.
For burrowing crayfish we used tube traps, built by Aquatica Environmental, and based on a ‘trap’door’ system similar to those used by the guys at DELWP/ARI (we get a similar catch rate of 10%).
Excitedly we caught two rare species:

• South Gippsland Spiny Crayfish (Euastacus neodiversus); and
• Strzelecki Burrowing Crayfish (Engaeus rostrogaleatus).

We also caught plenty of fish including Brown Trout, Short-finned Eel, River Blackfish, Tupong, Spotted and Common Galaxias.
A special thanks goes out to Di Crowther from DELWP/ARI who confirmed the burrowing crayfish ID, which was no easy task given the specimen had some tricky morphological features.