{"id":563798,"date":"2026-07-29T22:00:46","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T19:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=563798"},"modified":"2026-07-30T11:24:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T08:24:53","slug":"mstsislau-district-resident-paid-for-services-with-red-book-crayfish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/mstsislau-district-resident-paid-for-services-with-red-book-crayfish","title":{"rendered":"Mstsislau District Resident Paid for Services With Red Book Crayfish"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In Mstsislau District, officers of the State Inspectorate for the Protection of Animal and Plant Life detained a man who was illegally catching broad-clawed crayfish, a species listed in the Red Book of Belarus.<\/p>\n

According to the inspectorate’s information<\/a>, the offender used 17 crayfish traps. Inspectors found 740 broad-clawed crayfish with a total weight of 24.5 kilograms. The environmental damage caused was estimated at 3,330 basic units.<\/p>\n

After the detention, inspectors released 411 live crayfish back into their natural habitat.<\/p>\n

The detained man admitted that he knew he was catching a protected species but did so for financial gain. According to him, he used the crayfish as a “living currency” to pay for various services.<\/p>\n

The Mstsislau District Department of the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against the man under Part 4 of Article 281 of Belarus’ Criminal Code.<\/p>\n

The State Inspectorate noted that three crayfish species inhabit Belarus: the broad-clawed crayfish, which is listed in the Red Book, as well as the narrow-clawed crayfish and the American signal crayfish.<\/p>\n

The broad-clawed crayfish has a smooth shell without spines, with small tubercles along the edges, and broad, powerful claws. The narrow-clawed crayfish is covered with spines and tubercles, and its claws are long and narrow. The signal crayfish is considered an invasive species and can easily be identified by a white or blue-green patch at the fork of its claws and pale reddish-brown stripes on its abdomen.<\/p>\n

Catching broad-clawed crayfish is prohibited, while catching narrow-clawed crayfish is permitted provided the established rules are followed, including limits on catch size, the number of traps and fishing methods.<\/p>\n

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Photo: gosinspekciya.gov.by<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Photo: gosinspekciya.gov.by<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Mstsislau District, officers of the State Inspectorate for the Protection of Animal and Plant Life detained a man who was illegally catching broad-clawed crayfish, a species listed in the Red Book of Belarus. According to the inspectorate’s information, the offender used 17 crayfish traps. Inspectors found 740 broad-clawed crayfish with a total weight of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":563797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6a6b0a58edf79.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Mstsislau District Resident Paid for Services With Red Book Crayfish"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142338,143094],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-563798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-incident"],"wps_subtitle":"","permalink_manager":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}