Pacifasticus leniusculus The only native Washington Crayfish
Yesterday afternoon after @stryeyz got home from work we were at the creek before dinner, talking over the day, when she spotted the crawdad in the water opposite the falls. This is the first that we have seen this year so far so it was nice to be able to check it out. I reached my hand down into the water slowly and managed to catch it by the top of its carapace. This made it very easy to hold it since neither its claws or its tail could effectively stymie my grasp.
When I first held it above the water it began to flail its arms and tail around. This GIF is from the first 30 seconds of that.
I kept taking pictures of the crawdad from different angles and this GIF came out perfect since it started to flap its tail forward. It felt like the crawdad was clapping its tail against its body.
We are happy to see that the crayfish are doing well in our creek. None have been harvested from the creek as I am not in a hurry to reduce their numbers. We have the river a quarter mile away and the larger crayfish are in there. Now that the water is warming up I need to go try throwing my trap in and see if I can come up with any. We don't have the numbers that are in the south, so I think it is essential to try and maintain a healthy number of them in the local environment.
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Holy crap that's a big ass crawdad.
Do you eat them?
I never have, but when I lived in Texas crawdad cookoffs were a huge thing.
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I haven't taken any. I love having them in the creek. I have tried to catch them from the river nearby but have yet to be successful.
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It is looking so scaring. You had Braveheart man.
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