For nearly the past decade, the sunaq tribe of kodiak (sunaq) has been gravely concerned about the presence of signal crayfish (pacifastacus leniusculus) in the buskin watershed of kodiak island,…

This $195,613 Project Grant awarded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Tribal Wildlife Grants program supports the Sun'Aq Tribe of Kodiak in addressing the invasive signal crayfish problem in the Buskin watershed of Kodiak Island, Alaska. The two-year grant (May 2024 - May 2026) will enable the tribe to continue dedicated eradication efforts, expand environmental DNA monitoring and analysis, conduct mark-recapture studies through a community crayfishing derby, and develop habitat suitability indices to inform population management goals. These activities build upon the tribe's prior research and crayfish removal work funded through other federal grants. The project aims to better understand the impacts of the invasive crayfish on the local ecosystem, particularly the wild salmon stocks that are vital to the subsistence culture and lifestyle of the Sunaq Tribal citizens and the broader Kodiak community.

For nearly the past decade, the sunaq tribe of kodiak (sunaq) has been gravely concerned about the presence of signal crayfish (pacifastacus leniusculus) in the buskin watershed of kodiak island, particularly how this invasive species will impact the wild salmon stocks vital to the subsistence culture and lifestyle of sunaq tribal citizens as well as non-tribal members of the kodiak community. Signal crayfish were not previously found in alaska until the first records were reported in the upper buskin river in 2002, and since the initial reports two decades ago, they have subsequently invaded buskin lake and areas throughout the buskin river. We have conducted several projects, initially 1) researching the extent of crayfish spread in this watershed (funded through a tribal wildlife grant), and subsequently 2) switching to dedicated eradication efforts, funded through a BIA invasive species grant (successfully completed this year), and a currently-funded tribal wildlife grant which will conclude next year. The results of our ongoing research to better understand the impacts crayfish are currently causing and will have on the buskin ecosystem, as well as our concerted efforts towards removal and eradication make IT imperative we do not lose momentum at keeping this invasive species contained and suppressed. This new tribal wildlife grant is specifically tailored to expand and bolster these efforts, structured to begin closing current known datagaps, and finally as a continuation of proven and established methods we have found to be most effective due to our prior funding by tribal wildlife grants. This two-year (may 2024 may 2026) project will enable further direct eradication efforts, enhanced monitoring, and especially community involvement with research and eradication to maximize our positive efforts. Furthermore, during the course of our work we will continue to better understand fundamental population dynamics of the signal crayfish in the buskin watershed through four primary elements:1)continued and expanded environmental DNA (edna) monitoring and metabarcoding analysis within the watershed to determine the extent of signal crayfish propagation throughout the buskin system as well as to begin assessing ecosystem impacts 2)snorkel diving, trapping, and electrofishing to directly remove crayfish from the ecosystem, and developing and sharing trapping techniques with the public to support community involvement with crayfish suppression 3)a mark-recapture study designed to be held in conjunction with a season-long (may to october) crayfishing derby sponsored by local businesses in partnership with sunaq to create a large dataset, remove as many crayfish as possible, and increase our education and public outreach of the threats of this invasive species and,4)using these data to developing habitat suitability indices (hsis) of primary crayfish densities to correspondingly develop management goals of numbers of crayfish and targeted areas to suppress the population with the goal of achieving or reaching a point near functional eradication. This project will continue building upon and bolstering our ongoing efforts to gain a more thorough understanding of critical population dynamics, behavioral patterns, and ecosystem implications of the buskin watersheds invasive signal crayfish. Data collected from this study will be of excellent use for federal, state, and tribal natural resource management agencies and landowners to inform management strategies to address the presence of invasive signal crayfish here in kodiak, and potentially elsewhere in areas experiencing invasions of signal crayfish.