Management Information
Preventative measures: Education of the public, especially, pet traders, anglers, and bait shop owners, of the negative impacts of Orconectes virilis and the dangers associated with releasing nonnative crayfish may help reduce their introductions to new locations (ANSIS, 2007).
To minimize effects to irrigation systems in rice fields, the fields may be drained temporarily to drive crayfish in to their burrows so rice seedlings may establish (Godfrey, 2002).Biological control: The protection of sport fish and regulations that reduce their harvest in order to increase predation on Orconectes virilis is one potential means of reducing its populations (ANSIS, 2007).
A bacteria and the White Spot Syndrome Virus were examined for their effectiveness as potential biological controls for Orconectes virilis. The bacteria Spiroplama penaeiled led to 100% mortality when injected but body parts injected with S. penaeiled and fed to O. virilis did not induce mortality indicating that transmission via cannibalistic feeding is not viable. The White Spot Syndrome Virus yielded 100% mortality when injected or fed to all sizes of O. virilis indicating that it may be spread through cannibalistic feeding. WSSV did not infect non-target invertebrates but further research into this virus as well as other potential biological control agents for O. virilis is required before a viable one is found (Davidson et al, 2010). 
Management Resources/Links
2. Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (CEFAS)., 2008. Decision support tools-Identifying potentially invasive non-native marine and freshwater species: fish, invertebrates, amphibians.
Summary: The electronic tool kits made available on the Cefas page for free download are Crown Copyright (2007-2008). As such, these are freeware and may be freely distributed provided this notice is retained. No warranty, expressed or implied, is made and users should satisfy themselves as to the applicability of the results in any given circumstance. Toolkits available include 1) FISK- Freshwater Fish Invasiveness Scoring Kit (English and Spanish language version); 2) MFISK- Marine Fish Invasiveness Scoring Kit; 3) MI-ISK- Marine invertebrate Invasiveness Scoring Kit; 4) FI-ISK- Freshwater Invertebrate Invasiveness Scoring Kit and AmphISK- Amphibian Invasiveness Scoring Kit. These tool kits were developed by Cefas, with new VisualBasic and computational programming by Lorenzo Vilizzi, David Cooper, Andy South and Gordon H. Copp, based on VisualBasic code in the original Weed Risk Assessment (WRA) tool kit of P.C. Pheloung, P.A. Williams & S.R. Halloy (1999).
The decision support tools are available from: http://cefas.defra.gov.uk/our-science/ecosystems-and-biodiversity/non-native-species/decision-support-tools.aspx [Accessed 13 October 2011]
The guidance document is available from http://www.cefas.co.uk/media/118009/fisk_guide_v2.pdf [Accessed 13 January 2009]. 3. Davidson, Elizabeth W.; Jennifer Snyder; Donald Lightner; Gregory Ruthig; Julie Lucas; Joel Gilley, 2010. Exploration of potential microbial control agents for the invasive crayfish, Orconectes virilis. Biocontrol Science and Technology, 1360-0478, Volume 20, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 297 – 310 Results Page: 1
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