Panama City crayfish changes on hold
December 12, 2007
News Herald

The Panama City crayfish will remain a species of concern while the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission works to simplify the guidelines to reclassifying imperiled species.

“An imperiled species listing process should be designed in a way that it is easy for the public to understand,” Kipp Frohlich, head of the state’s Imperiled Species Management Section, said after a Dec. 5 meeting. “A listing process should not be a source of confusion or divisiveness.”

Commissioners approved a new manatee management plan at that meeting but deferred its reclassification from endangered to threatened. That deferment also postponed the reclassification of the Panama City crayfish from a species of special concern to threatened.

David Cook, an FWC invertebrate specialist, said in an e-mail the crayfish’s species of special concern regulations will stay in place during the research period, including prohibitions against killing or harassing the animals.

“The bottom line,” Cook said Tuesday, “is the listing process is to be revisited. Staff was directed to come up with some alternatives and present those to the commissioners.”

He said he wasn’t at the Dec. 5 meeting and doesn’t know specifics regarding the commission’s concerns or what staff members were directed to do.

“There will be meetings held to try to determine exactly what our marching orders are,” he said.

The proposed crayfish management plan, which would restrict land uses in an 81-squaremile area of the county, has drawn the ire of some local developers. Several municipalities have passed resolutions asking the FWC to hold off on changes.