AMAZING ANIMALS: HERMIT CRABS
AMAZING ANIMALS: HERMIT CRABS
By Josea Descheemaeker age 11
You probably see these creatures on every beach you go to and every time you go snorkeling.ย Hermitย crabs can live in the water and on land due to the fact that they breath through gills.
Hermit crabs names are very deceiving for several reasons:
- As opposed to being hermits that prefer to always be alone, hermit crabs are vary social with other hermit crabs.ย Hermit crabs live and walk easily among their kind, over and under their kind, eating shell to shell in groups sometimes.
- They are more shy than hermit like.ย They are quick to hide in their shell when as little as a shadow passes over them.
- Hermit crabs are more closely related to spiders and scorpions than crabs,
The reason people put Hermit in their name is because they carry their homes
everywhere they go . Hermit crabs are vary picky about what shells they live in and they switch shells when they grow too big for the one they are living in.ย Sadly, now some Hermit crabs use plastic bottle caps and other Plasticย things as homes.
Many Hermit crabs love to decorate their shells.ย Hermit crabs can lift things 10 times their weight . Despite a hermit crab's size they Typically live up to 30 years in the wild and some liveย up toย 60 years. There are about 500 Species of hermit crabs all over the world And with a lot of colors blues reds whites And oranges And sometimes all of those colors on one hermit crab.ย Some colors can be very bright.
Hermit crabs have many predators too such as big crabs, birds, and fish that keep the hermit crab population down.ย Hermit cards eat pretty much anything they can fined and from my experience they love coconut.
Believe it or not hermit crabs and coconut crabs are closely related.ย While hermit crabs live in shells their entire life, coconut crabs only live in shells when they are young.
My Experience
Hermit crabs are very shy animals.ย When you get to close to them they retreat into their shells.ย When I put a hermit crab on my hand most will be very eager to run off and get away from me.ย It is a rare hermit crabs, typically the bigger ones, that will try to pinch me.ย Do not be deceived by their small size, they have very large claws and it hurts a lot when they pinch you.ย If you are hiking off the beach and when youโre still close to the beach, you can sometimes find hermit crabs clinging to the tree.ย If youโre taking a shell from the beach look very closely and make sure thereโs not a hermit crab in it.ย At 1st glance some shells look like they donโt have any hermit crabs in them but the small hermit crab sometimes get inย shells way too big for them and itโs very hard to see them so look very closely.ย This has happened to me sometimes and I have accidentally brought aย hermit crab in their shells back to the boat. If there's a shy hermit crab that you want out of the shell you can cup it in your hands and breathe onto them. This typically coaxes them out because of the warmth of your breath but there are some that are just too scared and they won't come out.
SY WHIRLWIND ๐บ๐ธ Maurisa, Mike, Russell & Josea โ Alajuela 48โ
BOCAS DEL TORO BEACH CLEAN UP
BOCAS DEL TORO BEACH CLEAN UP
Report from Maison de Sante:
We had a nice group of Posse boats and local residents here in Bocas Del Toro, Panama who came out this morning for clean up on Red Frog beach. Many pounds of plastic garbage was collected ๐. The strangest items collected included a bicycle mud flap, a scuba purge valve, and a diaper๐คข. Some people had to leave early so not everyone is pictured. Stay tuned for a future date where we can ALL participate in beach clean up wherever you are located!
SY BISOU ๐ฆ๐บ Robin and Tad - Fountaine Pajot 44โฒ & SY MAISON DE SANTร ๐บ๐ธ Nicole & Keenan - ย Cal 46'
THANK YOU FOR BEING STEWARDS OF OUR ENVIRONMENT!
Recent Article from Pulitzer Center Ocean Reporting Network Reveals Harsh Realities Plastic
Traveling the world by the ocean, plastic waste cannot be overlooked as a global problem.ย It is in the end of it's 'use' when the global problem plastic pollution becomes most obvious.ย As ocean voyagers we see Plastic bottles, wrappers, lines, containers, and shoes filling current lines, passing through an anchorage or an estuary with the tide, littering the high tide line from the beach into the trees, and burning in thick black smoke from trash fires all over the world.ย It is most contemptible and disastrously true that many stunning beaches are spoiled by plastic waste that comes from near and far.ย ย Ideally, all plastic is or could be recycled and neither the air quality or the environment are harmed in the process.ย However, in reality less than 10% of plastic produced is recycled worldwide and plastic waste is becoming a greater and greater threat to human health and the environment.ย We all need to know more in order to do better by ourselves, the environment and future generations.
"Humans have produced more than 11 billion metric tons of virgin plastic since 1950, when plastic first came into widespread use, according to Roland Geyer, lead author of one of the first scientific studies quantifying the global plastic habit. According to his research, only 2 billion metric tons are still in use today, meaning the restโsome 8.7 billion tonsโis waste. According to the U.N. Environment Programme, the world produces 430 million metric tons of plastic annually, two-thirds of which are short-lived products destined for disposal."
Quote from: Inside Fijiโs Fiery Battle Against Plastics By Aryn Baker/Lautoka, Fiji
Thankfully, there are initiatives all over the world working to understand and address this global problem.ย A recent article quoted above from the Pulitzer Center Ocean Reporting Network tracks the complicated and convoluted plastic problem that the island nation of Fiji is facing.ย Fiji produces plastic (Fiji Water is their biggest tax payer and employer), distributes plastic worldwide, uses plastic, receives plastic by way of ocean currents in excess of national use by 72%, dumps, buries, and burns plastic.ย Plastic at the end of it's use is Fiji's most problematic pollutant.
Fiji is a small island nation of 332 islands; they maintain one sanitary landfill and two municipal dumps.ย While these waste facilities make an effort to manage their own national waste they are unable to manage the added plastic pollution in the ocean landing on their shores.ย While interviewing a local woman that sorts and cleans plastic bottles for cash returns, the reports follows her as she process all 'other' plastic.
So, where does excess plastic waste go when it cannot be properly recycled or disposed of?ย
- In Fiji, there is a limited amount of plastic bottles that are bought back by Coca Cola and Fiji Water and many Fijians are a part of this 'economy'.ย This 'economy' involves, collecting, sorting, washing, bagging, weighing and delivering select Coca-Cola and/or Fiji bottles.
- 'Other' plastic waste is either burned,
- buried, or
- dumped into the environment.
While the report focuses on Fiji, the story of people, burdened by heaps of plastic, burning, burying, or dumping excess plastic is replicated dozens of times daily in communities around the world, and across the Fijian archipelago, creating a toxic burden on human and environmental health that is only starting to be quantified.ย The article goes on to tease apart the impact of these different methods on the environment and human health while highlighting local efforts in Fiji to address plastic pollution on a local and global level.
It is a wake up call.ย Plastic pollution is a detriment to our environment and human health.ย The toxic effects are being found in human blood to breastmilk and scientists are beginning to study the linkage to rising cancers and developmental delays and diseases.
To read more about the problem and possible global solutions, click this link:
https://time.com/6991350/plastic-microplastics-fiji-water-recycling/
Further reading that may be of interest to boat owners comes from a British study revealing "Disturbing levels" of Fiberglass in Oysters and Mussels.ย The ocean knows no borders, these are global issues:
https://boattest.com/article/british-study-reveals-disturbing-level-fiberglass-oysters-and-mussels