Country diary: A hopeful hunt for a covert crustacean | Derek Niemann

Vobster Quay, Somerset: We're fortunate to get a glimpse of a white-clawed crayfish, a nocturnal animal whose numbers are dwindling fastWhen night falls over a drowned quarry, hope crawls out of despair. The human swimmers who play by day here, sploshing back and forth under sheer limestone walls, will not see it. Teams of wetsuited divers will not either, and they have other priorities. These divers go deep, sinking 25 metres to the rock bottom, where wheelhouse wrecks of boats are metal boxes to discover and day becomes darkness, lit fitfully by torch beams.Standing in the sunlit uplands of a grass bank, looking down through clear blue-green water to submerged stone outcrops, our impossible quest is to see nocturnal creatures of cracks and cavities. This giant pool is a small sanctuary for breeding native white-clawed crayfish, hand-width crustaceans which have been all but wiped out by invaders in a changed water world outside. Our guides call this place an ark, in a determined belief that, one day, white-claws will reclaim a future beyond. Continue reading...