English

Abstract

Abstract Crayfish are key organisms in freshwater ecosystems across the United States (USA) and Canada, yet are among their most highly imperiled taxonomic groups. In 1996, a committee of prominent USA crayfish biologists warned of a crayfish imperilment plight and neglect of the fauna by natural resources agencies. It is unclear whether crayfish conservation has been prioritized by those agencies in the intervening decades. Our objective was to evaluate the status of crayfish conservation and management in 50 USA and 13 Canadian fish and wildlife agencies through a telephone survey. Fifty-one percent of agencies employed biologists to conduct crayfish work, mostly in the southern USA, and focused on threats (e.g., invasive species) or species’ distributions and conservation status. Of the 32 agencies working on crayfish, 59% considered them a priority, but 53% acknowledged insufficient funding. The most commonly cited information needs were threats, species compositions (native and introduced), distributions, conservation status assessments, and ecology. We report an encouraging but limited increase in agencies working on crayfish over the past two decades.