More than a 180 white-clawed crayfish have been released into the Yorkshire Dales as part of a new conservation project.
The freshwater crustaceans, which are the UK’s only native crayfish species, are endangered due to competition from invasive American signal crayfish and the diseases which they carry.
“The signal crayfish competes with native white-claws and brings with it a plague that kills our native crayfish,” said Lucy Atkinson, crayfish project officer at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust (YWT).
The crayfish were raised at Yorkshire’s first crayfish hatchery site, which was built at Flamingo Land in 2024.