Crayfish Bob - Countryside Champion Shortlisted Nominee

The INEOS Grenadier Countryside Champion Award is a new prize designed to highlight the work of the people making a material difference in the UK’s rural community, whether that be environmental, social or economic. Nominations are currently open, and we’re encouraging everyone to nominate the unsung heroes who are having a positive impact in the countryside.

A plague of crayfish

One such nominee, who has made it through to the shortlist, is “Crayfish Bob” AKA Bob Ring, who is on a one man mission to rid the UK’s waterways of the invasive American Signal Crayfish. The UK’s only indiginous species of crayfish, the white-clawed crayfish, are under threat from this alien species. The American crayfish were introduced in the 70s, in order to service the Scandinavian market.

The native white claw crayfish is under threat

As is so frequently the case with introduced species there were unintended consequences. The signal crayfish escaped their stewponds and found their way into the waterways of the UK, where they proceeded to decimate the native crayfish. Not only are the invaders bigger than the natives, and so were able to out compete them for food and breeding sites, but they also turned out to be carriers of a fungal infection called Crayfish Plague, which quickly wiped out the white claw crayfish in many watersheds.

Furthermore, being voracious and indiscriminate feeders, signal crayfish can have a significant impact on the entire ecosystem, devouring fish eggs, vegetation and invertebrates. They also have a tendency to damage riverbanks by burrowing into them, causing them to collapse and causing significant erosion.

The signal crayfish is an invasive species

The crayfish crusader

Little surprise, then, that people who love rivers are keen to be shot of the interlopers. Bob, I think it is fair to say, loves rivers. “I got into trapping crayfish because I just love being outdoors,” he said. After a career as a photographer, Bob’s ennui led him to undertake a nautical trip in an elderly yacht from the UK to St Petersburg via the Baltic Sea, in the company of no lesser personage than Griff Rhys Jones. “I went on this trip,” Bob explained, “and had seen people over there eating crayfish, and I even caught a few. Then, when I came back to London I was taking a trip up the Thames and saw dead crayfish floating past and thought “I recognise that.”

Having previously read about the American crayfish invasion, years before, he thought there might be a business there, removing the invasive crayfish and selling them to the voracious Scandinavian market. He set about trying to come up with a large-scale solution to the infestation, setting up his business Crayaway in 2003. 

Red tape and regulatory challenges

However, Bob has found that the market for crayfish has been a tricky space. First the Swedish authorities banned the import of live crayfish. “We had an export market to Scandinavia and the Baltic of about 100-200 tonnes per year, but now the market is reduced to about 5 tonnes,” Bob explained. 

Competition from the significantly cheaper, cooked and frozen crayfish factories in China further eroded the market, and then in 2019 DEFRA introduced new regulations regarding the keeping of live crayfish more difficult, making the delivery of fresh crayfish to restaurants far harder.

One of the main problems that Bob faces is that the authorities are worried that a thriving commercial market for crayfish could result in the further spread of signal crayfish, further endangering the native white claws.

The fear of them spreading has prevented DEFRA from issuing licences to trap. What we don’t want is people running around, doing it to make a quick buck, and just creaming off the bigger ones, because that compounds the issue, because those are the dominant one, and if they go then you have an explosion of smaller crayfish.” The law now requires anyone trapping crayfish to remove all signal crayfish that they trap, regardless of size. 

Crayfish Bob's boils

In the face of these challenges, Bob has a simple message. “We need Brits to eat more crayfish,” he says. With this in mind, Bob has been out preaching the gospel of crayfish to the public. In 2011 he started his “Crayfish Bob” brand, running Louisiana-inspired pop-up crayfish boils at street food markets and restaurants, and even taking his stall to Glastonbury and Shambala music festivals. He’s also appeared on several TV shows, including Three Men in a Boat, and The Hairy Bikers.

These media appearances have been a mixed blessing, Bob explains. Each time he has appeared, there has been a spike in applications for trapping licences. This is not, in itself, a huge problem, were it not for the fact that it stokes the fears outlined above.

“I’m all for people trapping a few crayfish for their own personal use,” he says, “but ultimately we’re not going to have an impact on crayfish numbers at a cottage industry scale. It needs to be done at a far bigger scale.”

In 2011 he started the National Institute of Crayfish Trappers to help further that aim. The body seeks to professionalise the practice of crayfish trapping, and “provide an environmentally sound legislative framework for the UK industry, to support research and development and promote the trapping and consumption of UK non-native crayfish as a control initiative to assist in the conservation of freshwater habitats and species.

The last couple of years, with lockdowns and restaurant closures, have made things even harder for Bob, but he continues undeterred, focussing on keeping a few lakes and ponds free of crayfish, and supplying a few hotels and restaurants. 

I asked Bob what winning the Countryside Champion award would mean to him and his cause. Seeming slightly embarrassed, he explained that the biggest impact it could have would be helping him to further his campaign to rid the UK’s waters of invasive crayfish. “I’m not looking to be ‘sustainable’ - quite the opposite. I’d like the judges to help with lobbying government to take a nation-wide approach to the eradication of signal crayfish, and to help with spreading the word about the amazing resource that we have here, to help build up a market for crayfish, get them into our supermarkets and places like Pret, instead of the Chinese imports they currently use.”

Nominations for the INEOS Grenadier Countryside Champion Award are open until 28th February 2022.

Crayfish Bob has already been nominated and made the shortlist - there is no need to nominate him again!

If you know of a Countryside Champion like Bob - someone unsung and under the radar, working to make a positive environmental, social or economic impact in the rural community - nominate them using the form below or by filling out this short survey.