Eating invasive crayfish - a solution to our ecological mess?

Are invasive species natural? If we introduced them, do we have some responsibility to manage them? What if we could reduce their numbers through the natural process of eating?

In this episode, Jackie Turner (TABLE) joins crayfish trapper Bob Ring to see if we can eat our way out of one of the environmental problems we’ve created - the spread of invasive American Signal Crayfish into the river Thames. We ask if these invasive crayfish are ‘natural’, how they ended up in London’s iconic river in the first place, whether they offer a promising sustainable food source, and why it is so difficult to earn a living doing what Bob Ring sees as an environmentally and ethically beneficial act.

This is the second of a three part series exploring if we can eat our way out of the problems we’ve caused. The last episode featured grasshoppers in Mexico and the next will be on white-tailed deer in forests of the eastern United States.

For more info and resources, visit: https://tabledebates.org/podcast/episode57

Guests

• Bob Ring, Crayfish Trapper in London

Episode edited and produced by Jackie Turner. Music by William King and Blue dot sessions.