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Strange occurrences in daily life

I was also tricked by such a display of helplessness.

Yes, Amerikaanse Rivierkreeft is quite a problem. The other invasive plague is the Japanese Knotweed which is everywhere.

The Netherlands is having an interesting symbiosis with water. The good news is that it is high on the agenda and the waters are maintained quite well.

Kids catching them:


Ps, I live near Amersfoort.
 
I don't think you can catch them anywhere in the UK without a licence, I suppose this is to protect native species otherwise it should be encouraged.
I got a booklet about catching them (requested from a Gov website iirc) a few years ago as there are lots of them around here, but never got around to doing anything about it. I recall there were requirements including the license, recording all your catches and notifying someone or other of the numbers, and only using approved equipment/traps so that you didn't inadvertently capture or harm any other wildlife. It's illegal to capture or kill the native crayfish.
 
I was un-aware that they had stopped issuing the licenses in the Uk, but hardly surprising.
The Serpentine in London has more than a few, and a permanent net is (was?) in place - they walk along it at the base into traps at either end. It used to be that they were sold - now?
If you want some, and know of a river / canal that has them (there will be zero native white crays there as a certainty), just get a fishing license, and go fishing for fish. You will cath many, many crays, and very few fish.. You can't put the crays back, so, erm - eat them..
 
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Hero(n) fighting the crayfish.
 
Yes, Amerikaanse Rivierkreeft is quite a problem. The other invasive plague is the Japanese Knotweed which is everywhere.

The Netherlands is having an interesting symbiosis with water. The good news is that it is high on the agenda and the waters are maintained quite well.

Kids catching them:


Ps, I live near Amersfoort.
Psycho crustaceans! Did you see that one going for the net? Also watching the kids in that film- that was a great age to be. I belonged to a gang that turned over peoples fruit gardens. It was a functioning democracy. We would go out spotting then agree a plan of attack using stealth or surprise, hitting the strawberries and raspberries mob handed. I still have a scar on my left shin from stepping into a corrugated iron lined compost pit when the geezer came flying out his back door.
 
Crikey, in that report he says 800 offspring per crayfish per year! However, humans are always afraid of natural selection winners among other species.
 
Psycho crustaceans! Did you see that one going for the net? Also watching the kids in that film- that was a great age to be. I belonged to a gang that turned over peoples fruit gardens. It was a functioning democracy. We would go out spotting then agree a plan of attack using stealth or surprise, hitting the strawberries and raspberries mob handed. I still have a scar on my left shin from stepping into a corrugated iron lined compost pit when the geezer came flying out his back door.

We raise our kids that way. Sometimes we have interesting disagreements with other parents. A few years ago my two oldest kids found a drowned hedgehog and brought it home. They completely analysed (to pieces) it and in they gave the remaining parts a burial in the garden.

All fine, but there was also a friend whose parents came in the evening telling us that they did not appreciate the soaked outfit of the youngster and that he touched a dead animal. I did not tell the bloody part, assuming that that wasn’t told at home either.
 
We raise our kids that way. Sometimes we have interesting disagreements with other parents. A few years ago my two oldest kids found a drowned hedgehog and brought it home. They completely analysed (to pieces) it and in they gave the remaining parts a burial in the garden.

All fine, but there was also a friend whose parents came in the evening telling us that they did not appreciate the soaked outfit of the youngster and that he touched a dead animal. I did not tell the bloody part, assuming that that wasn’t told at home either.

When we were at primary school we used Longworth small mammal traps to capture and observe small creatures, usually field mice and shrews, occasionally one would be dead when we opened the trap and always if it was a shrew, we were encouraged to cut them up and remove the skins which we used to cure with alum salt, they would then be placed on the wall with information on the animal and habits, today someone would think they had walked into a real life “Wicker Man”, little kids happily chattering away slicing and dicing up animals in the class room.
 
When we were at primary school we used Longworth small mammal traps to capture and observe small creatures, usually field mice and shrews, occasionally one would be dead when we opened the trap and always if it was a shrew, we were encouraged to cut them up and remove the skins which we used to cure with alum salt, they would then be placed on the wall with information on the animal and habits, today someone would think they had walked into a real life “Wicker Man”, little kids happily chattering away slicing and dicing up animals in the class room.
Nothing wrong with that, I did similar. A few years ago I found a whole snake skin, about 2-3 feet long. I gave it to a primary school teacher friend, she had loads of lessons out of it.
 
My teacher at school when I was 11 arranged a real skeleton of a human being in the classroom. Is that normal or not nowadays?
Very hard nowadays, you need to have a medical qualification to keep human remains. This is because of people using them for black magic etc. Can you get a by for education? Maybe, but you'd be hemmed in by security issues at every turn.
 
Here in Sweden they imported the American cray fish in the 1960's and planted them everywhere. Seems there are people who actually eat them.
 
Nothing wrong with that, I did similar. A few years ago I found a whole snake skin, about 2-3 feet long. I gave it to a primary school teacher friend, she had loads of lessons out of it.

And a nice pair of shoes for the holidays.

Many years ago we were on a long-ish walk in the country with our two daughters, aged about 9 and 6. The younger one seemed to be lagging behind a bit, so I went back to see if she was OK. She was dragging along a piece of a very dead deer, and said 'I'll take it to school for the nature table'. We persuaded her that this was not a good idea. Then we realised she was sucking her thumb, and Mrs H was terrified that she would get some nasty dead deer germ into her system.
 
Here in Sweden they imported the American cray fish in the 1960's and planted them everywhere. Seems there are people who actually eat them.

Helan går
Sjung hopp faderallan lallan lej
Helan går
Sjung hopp faderallan lej
Och den som inte helan tar*
Han heller inte halvan får
Helan går
Sjung hopp faderallan lej.

(Hic!)
 


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