LOS ANGELES (KRON) – Volunteers are working to rid creeks in the Santa Monica Mountains of an invasive crawfish.
They’re doing this to try to enable endangered steelhead to return to their historic spawning grounds.
A $600,000 grant from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is funding the three year effort to trap and remove the 3-inch long crawfish from mountain rivers and streams.
The volunteers are being led by biologists with the nonprofit Mountains Restoration Trust.
Over the past year, the group has removed about 44,000 crawfish and sent them to a local wildlife center to feed possums and raccoons.
Lee Katz, a biologist at Pepperdine University, says removing the crawfish allows native species including aquatic insects and steelhead to rebound.