MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Tens of millions of red crabs are heading to the ocean as part of their annual migration. christmas islandThere, far fewer humans use leaf blowers and garden rakes to help get around.
Alexia Jankowski, acting director of Christmas Island National Park, said Thursday there is a population of up to 200 million animals. endemic crabalso known as Gecarcoidea natalis, lives on a small Australian island in the Indian Ocean. Up to 100 million birds are expected to migrate from forest burrows to coastal breeding grounds.
The onset of summer rains in the Southern Hemisphere last weekend triggered this annual downpour.
Jankowski said the crabs seek shade during the day, but in the early mornings and evenings they move in vast, slow processions across roads and gardens to the coast.
The island’s 1,200 human neighbors are doing everything they can to remove the crustacean red carpet from their roads.
“Some people may think they’re a nuisance, but most of us think it’s a bit of a privilege to experience them. They’re promiscuous. So whatever you have to overcome to get to the coast, they’ll cross the coast. So if you leave your front door open, you’ll come home and find a bunch of red crabs in your living room. Some people have to rake it out themselves or rake it out if they need to get it out of the driveway in the morning. They don’t go. This is so we can leave the house without harming the crabs,” she added.
On the coast, male crabs dig burrows, where the females spend two weeks laying and hatching their eggs. All females plan to spawn in the ocean at high tide on November 14th or November 15th, during the waning moon.
The chicks spend a month riding the ocean currents as tiny larvae before returning to Christmas Island as tiny crabs.
“When they’re small, about half the size of a fingernail, you can’t rake them because they’ll shatter, so we use a leaf blower instead,” Jankowski said.
“About a month after the spawning happens, we’re actually on the beach looking pretty merry with our backpack leaf blowers on and blowing all these tiny little crabs off the road to reduce impact on cars,” she added.
