“Stop collecting natural hermit crabs from now before they become extinct. Is it fair to collect natural hermit crabs as a way for a group of people to make money? Nature should be left alone,” the Healthy Reefs Club, a member of the Andaman Conservationist Club of Thailand Conservationist Network, posted on its Facebook page yesterday (Nov 1).
“We understand that many people like to have hermit crabs to keep as for themselves (as pets), but they are taking the hermit crabs from the beaches and islands. This causes ecological destruction.
“How many people are collecting hermit crabs compared with how many hermit crabs are breeding naturally? Having hermit crabs is not wrong, but they should not do that.” the message added.
The call follows a post on the #PHUKET WORK Facebook group offering to pay people to collect hermit crabs.
An administrator of the Healthy Reefs Club Facebook page who asked not to be named told The Phuket News that the job offer was posted by “a woman who lives in Bangkok”.
“The post was looking for more people who live in Phuket to collected hermit crabs on beaches. It said they will get B10,000 to B20,000 per week,” the administrator said.
Although the Healthy Reefs Club Facebook page posted a copy of the job offer, as of this morning The Phuket News failed to find the post on the #PHUKET WORK web page.
Long term campaign
“We have been doing many marine conservation projects including hermit crabs. Many shells were collected from many beaches. In 2015 we had a project named ‘Return homes back to hermit crabs’. This project encouraged people not to collect shells which are home to hermit crabs. Many people took part in the project,” an admin of the page added.