Keville & O'Sullivan Associates win Heritage Council award under the 2008 Wildlife Grant Scheme

K&OSA will receive a grant for an application entitled "The recovery of White-clawed Crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes populations following translocation and instream works in Co. Mayo". The aim of the project (led by Chris Peppiatt) is to resurvey a number of watercourses in the River Deel catchment beneath which a water supply pipeline was laid during works in summer-autumn 2006. During this work K&OSA staff captured and translocated more than 600 crayfish from four sites as they were dammed and drained. Full biometric data were collected for individuals before they were released upstream of the work sites.

 

Four sites at which crayfish were captured in 2006 will be surveyed and compared with areas immediately upstream and downstream of each. The data obtained will allow the age structure of the crayfish populations to be compared both with areas unaffected by the original works and with those that were recorded at the same sites when they were dewatered for the original pipeline works. We hope that this will allow assessment of the recovery of the crayfish populations at the sites where crayfish were removed before excavation and may indicate if the sites have been recolonised by adult or juvenile crayfish. In addition to the crayfish work, the affected watercourse sites will also be surveyed for bank state and aquatic macrophyte growth etc. in order to assess the extent of their recovery after the works and the effectiveness of mitigation measures in stabilising affected banks after the pipeline had been laid.