We can’t say that we’re always on the same page as PETA — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — but the organization may be onto something with the Miss Crustacean Hermit Crab Beauty Pageant and races.
Each year as part of the silly events Ocean City promotes for residents and visitors alike, the resort offers the pageant and races in the latter part of August.
The beauty contest is actually a chance for individuals and businesses to create sometimes-elaborate dioramas with punny themes that often reflect something going on at the time, such as popular movies. The crabs are just a small part of that.
The races are just races. People, kids usually, put their hermit crabs on a big table on a hot summer evening and the ones that race out of the painted circle the fastest are the winners. Speed makes sense. Why any hermit crab wants to stay on a sun-soaked table for any length of time is beyond us.
PETA has written to Mayor Jay Gillian asking him to end the pageant and the contest, contending that they help promote people keeping hermit crabs as pets.
The organization suggested instead a contest to promote protecting these coastal creatures, which can live for 40 years in the wild, and not to exploit them by supporting people keeping them as pets, which can dramatically shorten their lifespans.
(Anyone who has tried to keep a hermit crab they bought on the boardwalk for a kid’s pet can attest the little critters often don’t survive long once taken home. Wikipedia notes they have a reputation as “throwaway” and “low maintenance” pets, but can live for 15 years in captivity. However, that is provided they get complex care with constant temperature and consistent humidity, both salt water and freshwater, aren’t handled or dropped and have plenty of space to keep them from cannibalizing each other. That doesn’t sound like a beginner’s pet or a great way to keep a creature known for walking several miles a night in the wild.)
“Hermit crabs are individuals with their own interests, and in this day and age, we know enough to respect them, rather than scoop them from their ocean homes and use them for our entertainment,” PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk said in a release accompanying her letter, which is reprinted on this page in full. “PETA urges Ocean City to shellebrate these clever crustaceans by leaving them in peace and letting robot crabs take the stage instead.”
Robot crabs, huh? That may not be a bad idea. Or it may be the planting of an idea.
The late Ocean City publicist Mark Soifer came up with so many interesting ways of promoting Ocean City over the decades. Many of them, including Wacky Wednesday taffy sculpting and the annual Doo Dah Parade, continue.
Over the years, the Miss Crustacean Pageant and races have dropped in popularity and attendance. This may be the right time for a change.
Ocean City has a pair of XXL hermit crabs, Martin Z. and Mollie S. Mollusk, as its mascots. The city came up with really cute costumes, worn by young humans, that get the big mascots mobbed by kids at the many events they attend.
There are creative and energetic staff members in the city’s Community Services and Public Relations departments. We believe they could use PETA’s suggestion for robot crabs (PETA offered to supply some) or come up with new and better ways to reflect Ocean City’s mascot creatures.
How about a silly beauty contest with humans dressed as hermit crabs or humans racing in hermit crab costumes? This town does love its human pageants.
Or go with racing robotic or remote-controlled crabs. That would be right up the alley for kids in a family-driven resort. Toy aisles in stores are filled with battery-powered and remote-controlled creatures of all sorts … which could inspire similar sales in boardwalk stores.
Maybe an age-appropriate STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) contest with an engaging angle that has kids building robotic crabs from kits. (Easy for the young, harder for older kids.)
Battle bots, anyone?
Ocean City also just unveiled a Martin Z. Mollusk plushie, so it can promote sales of a hermit crab that needs absolutely no care.
Some new promotions — or new angles on old promotions — could attract new crowds, always a good thing for America’s Greatest Family Resort. So even if the ethical angle doesn’t pull at local officials’ heartstrings, maybe the public relations angle of new promotions (and new tourists) will.