£4,000 bill for killing crayfish

Christopher Hemsley, 41, of Leeds Road, Bramhope, Leeds, was ordered to pay a total of 4,000 after admitting two charges, killing the endangered native white-clawed crayfish, contrary to the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981, and taking fish in an inland water with a trap, without a licence, contrary to the Salmon and Freshwater

Fisheries Act of 1975.

Katie Marsden, prosecuting at South Lakeland Magistrates' Court, said the offences took place in the River Kent at Staveley, near Kendal, Cumbria, at a site of special scientific interest.

The crayfish were classified internationally as a threatened species. They were protected as a result of catastrophic reduction in numbers owing to habitat degradation and invasion by the larger American signal crayfish.

The River Kent was one of the few last remaining strongholds of the native species.

Last September two men were seen catching white-clawed crayfish and the Environment Agency was alerted. When officers attended they found traps with live crayfish and others in a fridge.

The police were called and the men were arrested.

They had been staying at a local caravan park where, they told police, they had taken the crayfish, some to be boiled and some to be taken back to Leeds. It was estimated that 40 or more crayfish in all had been caught over the weekend.

Hemsley, a salesman, had admitted catching the crayfish and accepted he was fishing without a licence. He said he thought they were the non-native signal crayfish.

In mitigation, John Batty said Hemsley was thoroughly embarrassed by his predicament. He was an active environmentalist and some of the men involved in planting schemes had gone away for a weekend in the Lake District.