Last fall, members of the Nevada Wildlife Federation volunteered to help with a crawdad trapping project at Corn Creek, Desert National Wildlife Range. Three ponds at Corn Creek provide habitat for the Pahrump poolfish, an endangered species. Manse Spring, the historical habitat for this species dried up in the 1970s. Fortunately, some of the fish were rescued and placed in refugium habitat at several locations in Nevada. One of which is the ponds at Corn Creek. In the fall of 1997, the Fish and Wildlife Service started an intensive crawdad trapping project in an attempt to project the Pahrump poolfish from predation by crawdads. To date, about 8,000 crawdads have been trapped out of the ponds.

Currently, there is an on site volunteer trapping on a weekly basis. However, she will be leaving in March. There is a need for volunteers to continue the trapping until the end of the summer. The Fish and Wildlife Service provides traps, bait and buckets. In addition, the crawdads can be easily caught using a fishing pole with chicken for bait. NvWF volunteers have trapped up to 500 crawdads in a single day. Corn Creek is a pleasant, shady location with good opportunities for bird watching while you are waiting for the traps.

If you are interested in helping, please let us know!

NvWF thanks each volunteer for their support!