Crawfish walk into hotel lobby!

I thought I would share this interesting email I received from a client yesterday:

" The manager at the [insert high end hotel here]  called.  They are having a problem with crawfish coming into the lobby from the pond."

After joking that they could have a least made a reservation, I set out to look at the pond and research about these animals. I have been in the pond business a long time, and have yet to run into this specific situation. 

So here's what I found out about crawfish:

They create burrows up to 36" in length into the embankment, they use these burrows to hide from predators and as a nursery for their young. As they become overcrowded, they build these burrows farther and farther away from the pond edge. These burrows can damage dams and along shorelines. Crawfish can walk considerable distances (in our case 100 feet up the hill, across parking lot and into the lobby!) They are great food source for sport fish, aquatic birds and other animals.

After doing some research, here's what we proposed: Stock sports fish (bass and bream) into the pond to control the numbers of crawfish present and harvest some of these animals to eat (or feed to the dog). Hopefully, these little creatures will stay away from the hotel lobby!