Woman issues plea to find new home for lost crayfish that was wandering a Sheffield car park

Suzanne Morton was surprised to find what she believes to be an American crayfish outside her front door in Winn Gardens at 3.30pm this afternoon, Wednesday, September 2.

The 52-year-old who works as a community pioneer in the area, found the animal in the car park near her house when she was taking her dog for a walk.

American crayfish – which are also known as signal crayfish – are an invasive non-native species, that are known to cause environmental problems which can be fatal to white-clawed native crayfish.

It is illegal to release signal crayfish back into the wild under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

Suzanne is now appealing for someone to come forward to re-home the lost animal, before it has to be killed.

She said: "It's quite sad situation really.

"He's in a bucket at the minute, just having a little mooch around so I don't particularly want to kill him but I kind of can't really do much else with him.

"Somebody else said she could keep them as pets but they live up to 30 years and yeah I haven't got the space to keep him as a pet.

"He's quite a cute little man, he's an interesting character.”

The 52-year-old believes the crayfish could have been dropped by a heron after it was picked out from a river.

Suzanne added: "As a community pioneer I come across all sorts of things on the estate, my job can vary from supporting people through foodbanks to emotional support and visiting new residents.

"I visit residents who are moved onto the estate because of domestic abuse or elderly people so I never know quite what my job is going to entail when I wake up in the morning but it certainly wasn't rescuing crayfish.

"I won't hold onto him for long because I don't really know whether he's happy in the bucket or not but he seems to be at the minute.”

To find out more about re-homing the crayfish, email [email protected].

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