Crayfish season closes down

Scelo Cwele of Hibberdene with a 1.2kg Crayfish. Delicious!

Crayfish season closes down

The 31 October sees the closing of the crayfish season:

Closed Season Crayfish – 1st Nov – 28th Feb

Anti Poaching Hotline – 083 380 6298 – 24hrs

Scelo Cwele of Hibberdene with a 1.2kg Crayfish. Delicious!

Crayfish are also called rock lobsters or spiny lobsters. Ours in Natal and Mozambique – the red ones, are called East Coast Rock Lobster (Panulirus homarus) – they taste the best, but are non-commercial and cannot be bought, sold or traded. They are not the ones you get in restaurants. They are the West Coast Lobster (Panulirus lalandii) – similar red look, but with a bigger head and smaller tail, in comparison to the East Coast model.

Rock lobsters are crustaceans with a carapace, and a tail that fans out at the end. This carapace (the head), is how the lobster are measured for legal size requirements. The carapace – measured from the spot between the horns over the eyes, to the end of the head – must be a minimum of 65mm. Soft shell crayfish (they have just molted), and crays in berry (carrying eggs), are not allowed to be taken at all.

The reason for the closed season is that they breed in the warm summer months. A crayfish takes 3 years to reach sexual maturity, which is approximately the legal size for capture – 65mm.