Steal this Hermit Crab
I love crustaceans. I especially love eating them. This is why, at the end of last August, I was in Ocean City, MD. What better place to feast upon Maryland’s state crustacean: the blue crab? There, at least I could eat with the knowledge that the crabs were caught locally, killed relatively quickly, and that catches were closely monitored and regulated.
But, as I soon found out, the same cannot be said for another popular tourist-attracting crustacean of Ocean City: The Caribbean hermit crab.
Native to the islands of the Caribbean sea, they spend most of their life along the beaches and woodlands there. They’re both prolific climbers and diggers, found nestled in the roots of tropical trees or sleeping in their branches. They keep the beaches and islands clean by eating any bits of dead and decaying matter they find. At night they drink from small inland freshwater pools. They venture to the beach to take dips into the ocean to bathe, soften their carapace for molting, find new shells, and reproduce.
But every year, millions of Caribbean hermit crabs are taken from their humid, warm, and varied paradise and piled into plywood boxes, destined for the boardwalks and beach resorts across the eastern United States.
It’s commonly said that a hermit crab’s shell is its home. This is only half the story. A hermit crab’s shell…
