An invasive species in the United Kingdom's rivers has led one trapper to push for a simple tactic to mitigate their ballooning population: eat them.
Andrew Leech has spent the past two decades catching and selling the North American signal crayfish and believes that cooking them is the easiest form of "pest control." He oversees the Kennet Crayfish Company, filling up to 150 traps a day in Thatcham's River Kennet.
"There is a market; they taste absolutely fantastic," Leech told the BBC of the miniature lobster-like crustacean, which crossed the Atlantic after the British government brought it over during the late 1970s. "They look pretty pre-historic, but they do taste good; that's why they were introduced in the first place."
His solution to the problems signal crayfish pose isn't unique, as conservationists and chefs have also vouched for similar methods for other invasive species, as long as they target the invasive species and not any native ones. Officials in the U.S. have called on the public to consume more European green crabs, while Bermuda hosts an annual cooking competition that relies on lionfish as the main ingredient.
According to the U.S. Geological Services, the North American signal crayfish can survive in a wide range of habitats, lay 500 eggs in a single breeding event, and live for as many as 20 years.
Those factors, combined with their voracious diet and burrowing habits, make them a formidable threat to the balance of England's freshwater ecosystems.
"They have a massive damaging impact, because they burrow into the banks and that causes erosion," Action for the River Kennet's Charlotte Hitchmough said, per the BBC. "The course fish lay their eggs in the summer and the crayfish just march into those nests and eat every egg, and if they run out of food, they just start eating each other."
The Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs has complicated Leech's operations, which used to sell as many as 4.4 tons of crayfish a week, as a law change now prevents the sale of live crayfish.
Nonetheless, Leech invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to now sell partially and fully cooked crayfish and is determined to educate the public about his cause.
"We'll probably have to get back to exporting, unless we can get people in this country to try them. Everybody who does try them raves about them, but this is where we've got to educate," Leech said.
"They're in too many places already, and we definitely don't want them any further," Hitchmough added.
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