Firstly what does illegal mean? These creatures are on the import blacklist, meaning that it is against the law of South Africa to import these into the country in accordance with the biodiversity act. Besides the few indigenous species, none of the ornamental freshwater shrimps are local to South Africa. This means at some point for them to be in the country, they were smuggled in illegally or brought in unknowingly. As you may have heard many times, ignorance is no excuse for the law, so saying you did not know they were illegal does not carry any weight with the law in terms of culpability.

As ridiculous as it may seem, you can compare freshwater shrimps to narcotics. It is illegal to import narcotics into South Africa, it is illegal to purchase narcotics in South Africa, regardless of whether they were imported into or manufactured inside of South Africa. This is the law.

Having these animals in your posession can lead to a fine of R100,000.00, 10 years in jail or both. you have been warned!

Secondly, why are they illegal in the first place, they seem so harmless. I do not know what goes on in some people's heads, but when they need to dispose of unwanted pets, they think that releasing them into the wild or flushing them down the toilet is a wonderful idea. Where does the water go when you flush your toilet? When you flush the toilet, water moves from the cistern, under the force of gravity and flushes the bowl and then goes down a pipe and joins the neighbourhood sewage system. This water including bathwater, washwater etc. collectively known as grey water, then moves to a sewage treatment plant. If you live in an area with a combined sewage treatment facility then this also includes storm water drains and run off water.

When it gets to the treatment facility it goes through a number of stages, the fisrt pre-treatment stage is to remove solid waste and other rubbish that people have disposed of via the sewage system, or junk that has been collected via the stormwater drains. Primarily they still use screens for this. After the water has been screened, there is the initial fat and oil removal, from people pouring cooking oil and fat down the sink, soaps etc. using a skimming or foam collection process. It then starts with primary treatment which mainly settles sediments and further floats of grease and oils. Secondary treatment is usually when it enters the biological stage where organic wastes are broken down by bacteria. All the sludge etc. is removed in different stages for different treatments as well, and at the end of the second stage the water is considered safe to enter the water ways, either pumped out to sea if you are near the coast, or entering the local rivers and dams.

As you can see there is a slim chance of any live aquatic animal flushed down the drain or toilet surviving this epic journey and joining our waterways, slim though it maybe it is still a chance. This is not a magical way of getting rid of unwanted items, only use the toilets and drains for exactly what they are meant for! If you have any unwanted pets, man up and take them to the SPCA or euthanase them yourself. Do not make it someone elses responsibility by releasing them into the wild. Explain to your kids that we live in a fragile eco-system, and that releasing plants and animals into the wild is not doing anyone any favours! You can use google to find the most humane ways of ethanasing your pets. They are never too young or too old to start learning about environmental responsiblity and conservation.

There have been issues in other countries with burrowing invertebrates, causing earthern dam walls to fail with catastrophic results. South Africa is a farming country and a lot of irrigation dams etc. have earth walls. There are also indigenous freshwater shrimps that are being put under pressure by alien invader fish that were also irresponsibly released into our water ways. Taking these two facts into consideration it was decided to blanket ban all freshwater crustaceans whether they were burrowers or not, and whether or not they could survive in our water ways due to our non-tropical temperatures as a better safe than sorry approach. This same methodolgy was followed in a few other countries, also mainly farming countries with their own freshwater shrimp populations.

You can thank your fellow responsible hobbyists worldwide for these animals currently being blacklisted.

Thankfully some research has been done, and the new draft of the alien invasive species act, has removed all freshwater crustaceans except for one burrowing crayfish. This is probably the one that has given all freshwater shrimps a bad name! As soon as this moves from draft inot law, it will be legal to keep these wonderful little creatures.

The new regulations removed some animals from the blacklist and added others on that were previously not blacklisted causing an uproar in the pet trade. These legal wranglings are what is currently holding up the process! No one is able to inform me when all the issues will be resolved.

For further information please contact Marthinus van Schalkwyk ( AKA kortbroek )