Around 20 volunteer ecological guards from the Ticino Regional Park and the Province of Pavia are working with GuardIAS researchers to monitor six wetlands along the Ticino River.
The volunteers have received training and equipment, including traps and bait, to help them identify and collect invasive red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii).
The plan is to check each wetland twice a month, with the captured crayfish brought to researchers for biometric measurements and data collection.
The collaboration is expected to continue until the end of the GuardIAS project, with the longer-term hope that crayfish monitoring could become part of the volunteers’ regular patrols.
The volunteers have already started trapping at Moriano wetland, where they successfully caught and collected crayfish themselves for the first time.
A great example of local volunteers and researchers working together to improve the monitoring of invasive alien species in freshwater environments.
