Crayfish in the Yard???

[Just Sold]

I do not live on a lake. Phillips Pond is about 1/2 mile away here in Sandown. I do have a brook that feeds into Phillips Pond 100' from my door. This morning at 7:00 AM as I was going out to wash the car I saw a Crayfish in the middle of the yard just working their way along in the grass. It was heading from the brook not towards it. While I washed the car he made it all the way to the driveway whereupon I picked it up and returned it to the brook in a calm water pool.
Why would this creature leave its normal enviroment and head away from it. There is no other water source in the direction it was heading except a small seasonal brook that was 200' away.
I took a video of it and the clicking sound is the crayfish.

http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=15156

2789

[TomC]

Back home in Mass, i'm at least 1/2 mile any ponds, yet last week I came across a crayfish, very much alive, at the side of the road in front of my house.... I kept looking around for Allen Funt (for those old enough to know who he is..)

Not being too far from the ocean and Merrimack River, I finally decided that a seagull or other bird poached the crayfish from a pond and tried to drop him on the sidewalk.. One sees gulls do this at the shore with crabs to kill them and break their shells.

I have no idea if that is a plausible explanation - I'd like to hear other theories...

[SteveA]

I did find this:

"Pathways of introduction
The most common pathway of introduction into natural waters is stocking by humans. In the 1970-80s the stocking policy in the region was liberal, and the signal crayfish was introduced legally into a large number of natural waters. From the late 1980s onwards, the introduction of the signal crayfish into new areas was restricted by the environmental authorities due to the threat it posed to the indigenous, red-listed noble crayfish (Troschel and Dehus 1993, Skurdal et al. 1999, Edsman 2004). However, the distribution of the signal crayfish still rapidly increases, including more and more watercourses. The crayfish can spread by natural migration only within a watercourse, between migration barriers. Most of the current spread is therefore due to illegal introductions by humans."

Quoted from this article: Page 3

http://www.nobanis.org/files/factsheets/Pacifastacus_leniusculus.pdf

This article, (page 3) also discribed when and why crayfish "migrate"

http://hyg.ipm.illinois.edu/pdf/hygpest200908.pdf

It's seems it is caused by extensive rainy periods.:rolleye1:

We haven't had that lately... :rolleye1:

[eillac@dow]

So...last night I am walking out of work....down a long driveway to the parking lot, when I happened to look down at my feet, and thank God I did as I almost stepped on a crawfish. The biggest one I ever saw!. At first, I thought it may have been fake based on the color, kind of dark brown/blackish and dark green....but big. Last I remember, they were mostly green. I almost thought it was a rubber toy. A co-worker touched it with his foot and it moved....thus it was real.

I was more than amazed as I had just read this thread the same day. I have two pics by my cell phone but I need to try and re-size the pics for this thread.

Now I do work where there is water (cranberry bogs), but I was still a good distance away from the water....so I am figuring this guy starting walking quite some time ago based on where it was.

If I resize the pics, I will post.