Two men fined for illegally fishing for crayfish in Derby
Date of alert:
Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Crime Ref:
Force:
Derbyshire Constabulary
The Environment Agency has successfully prosecuted two men for fishing illegally for crayfish on the River Derwent in Derby in July 2019.
At Derby Magistrates on Monday 14 February 2022, Xiao Chaun Zhang, 41, of Prospect Road, Nottingham, was fined £400 and ordered to pay £690 costs while Weiqui Lui, 41, of Watermark Close, Nottingham, was fined £333 and ordered to pay costs of £683.
Commercial trapping of crayfish for human consumption is not permitted, because it can cause the spread of disease (known as the crayfish plague) from invasive signal crayfish to native white claw crayfish. This is fatal to native white claw crayfish.
Trapping also results in an increase in the population of signal crayfish, because it removes the larger crayfish which naturally predate on the smaller ones.
The court was told that the defendants were spotted by police officers, from the Derbyshire Wildlife and Rural Crime Team, near the St Mary’s Bridge on the River Derwent, Derby, around midnight on 23 July 2019.
The officers observed the defendants throwing traps into the river and later found some signal crayfish had been caught. A chicken carcass was also discovered which was being used as bait. The defendants had modified plastic mushroom crates to make traps to catch signal crayfish.
