Burrowing US crayfish cause £2m damage to historic site

AN INVASION of American crayfish has caused £2.2million worth of damage at a National Trust property.

The six-inch-long signal crayfish, that arrived in Britain from the US as a collectors’ item in the Sixties, are believed to have escaped into the countryside, causing river banks to collapse with their tunnels.

The National Trust said the crayfish had devoured the banks of one of the dams at Prior Park Landscape Garden, near Bath, which will have to be completely rebuilt and restored.

Other long-term damage has been caused to the ornamental lakes set around the famous Palladian Bridge, leaving the trust to fund a £2.2million restoration.

Hundreds of signal crayfish, which breed prolifically and have all but eradicated the native white-clawed crayfish, have burrowed into the banks of the lakes and are opening up holes.

With no safe chemical cure to halt the spread of the crayfish, experts plan to reinforce the middle dam to prevent the invaders burrowing into it in future.