OCEAN CITY — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wrote to Mayor Jay Gillian last week, trying to cajole him into stopping the city’s annual Miss Crustacean Beauty Pageant and hermit crab races.
The tone of the letter from PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk was light and playful, offering to supply robotic crabs instead, but the underlying message about the treatment of hermit crabs was serious.
Don’t expect the city to take PETA up on its offer or to stop the pageant set for Aug. 19. It isn’t a pageant, per se. Although attendance at the event has been declining for years, it remains about kids and adults creating fancy dioramas with pun-filled themes as homes for the crabs. The races are just that — kids put their hermit crabs on a table top. The ones to skittle out of the painted circle first win.
Mayor Jay Gillian politely declined comment to the Sentinel last week about the issue.
“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,” Newkirk said in an accompanying press release that went along with her letter to the mayor. “PETA urges Ocean City to shellebrate these clever crustaceans by leaving them in peace and letting robot crabs take the stage instead.”
In her letter, she wrote that the city should retire the event because crabs aren’t “toys, trinkets, props or pets.”
She said Ocean City could “host a crab-friendly pageant that recognizes participants for protecting coastal wildlife and features activities such as bobbing for crab apples and crab-walk relay races. Attendees could even race robotic or remote-controlled crabs — and to enshore you’re not left in a pinch, PETA would be happy to provide you with some.”
“If the purpose of the pageant is truly to promote responsible ‘pet ownership,’ then the best way to support that goal would be to stop normalizing the purchase and confinement of hermit crabs altogether. Respecting crabs begins with recognizing that they are individuals with their own interests, not forcing them into pageants and races for human amusement,” she wrote.
“Times change, and traditions evolve. Just as New England no longer promotes whaling but sells everything that celebrates whales, Ocean City has a similar opportunity to transition toward compassion,” she concluded. “Rather than holding events that encourage the capture and use of hermit crabs as entertainment, the city could preserve all the fun with remote-controlled crab races and other animal-friendly activities that leave real crabs in peace.”
In an interview with the Sentinel, PETA Associate Director Colin Henstock talked about the industry behind hermits crabs and said every purchase “just fuels this trade that really has a staggering toll in terms of suffering” on the crabs. “We just urge Ocean City residents and visitors to the town to leave the hermit crabs in nature and support attractions that celebrate animals without exploiting them.”
Henstock said hermit crabs can live up to 40 years in the wild, have social groups and naturally tend to avoid humans.
The dealers who provide the crabs — most of which are two species that come from Ecuador and the Caribbean — “typically crack open their natural shells and just kind of toss them into enclosures with painted shells that are more visually attractive. A lot of crabs are injured in that process and some have been tossed in the trash while they were still alive.”
He pointed out the hermit crabs that people buy in boardwalk shops are not ones caught in Ocean City. “They’re getting shipped from other countries.”
“Behind every hermit crab in a beach town store is a really traumatic and harsh journey,” he said. “Those are just the survivors that reach the stores.”
In captivity, he said, “most (hermit crabs) will die somewhere between 1 and 4 years old. It’s really kind of a short, sad life for an animal that should be in the wild.”
Wikipedia notes hermit crabs 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. They’re also recommended to be put in an at-least 10-gallon aquarium.
“A lot of these are impulse buys by parents who are visiting the beach with their kids,” Henstock said. “That’s another reason why hermit crabs purchases should not be encouraged because even in a best-case scenario, these animals are not really suited to live in captivity. They’re often sold as a way to sell a small container and other accessories that can run up the bill for the parents who are buying it.”
He added PETA would be glad to have a discussion with the mayor to review options to transition the event.
Ocean City’s mascots are human-sized, cute, cartoonish hermit crabs named Martin Z. Mollusk and (his spouse) Mollie S. Mollusk. The mascots appear at numerous public events and are popular with children and adults, who often ask to have their photos taken with them.
On Saturday evening, outgoing Miss Ocean City Antonella DiAntonio was presented with a new stuffed version of Martin Z. Mollusk, which Aide to the Mayor Michael Allegretto said was something new.