Quote:
Originally Posted by ChessieMom
Another silly article based on, well, nothing real.
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No, its very real.
Our trash is killing crabs. And where does the rest of that bottle go, that the crabs are using parts of? It becomes part of the microplastics polluting every environment on earth, with yet to be determined consequences.
iNaturalist is not Twitter or Farcebook. Many of the images came from iNaturalist, which only includes images of creatures in their environment (aside from some people who might violate the rules at times).
But the point is, its a very real thing.
The plastic problem is not really new either
Plastic pollution kills half a million hermit crabs on remote islands
More than half a million hermit crabs have been killed after becoming trapped in plastic debris on two remote island groups, prompting concern that the deaths could be part of a global species decline.
The pioneering study found that 508,000 crabs died on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands archipelago in the Indian Ocean, along with 61,000 on Henderson Island in the
South Pacific. Previous studies have found high levels of plastic pollution at both sites.
Researchers from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (Imas) at the University of Tasmania, the Natural History Museum in London, and the community science organisation the
Two Hands Project, found one to two crabs per metre squared of beach were being killed by litter.
Dr Alex Bond, a senior curator at the Natural History Museum and one of the report’s researchers, said: “The problem is quite insidious really, because it only takes one crab.
“Hermit crabs do not have a shell of their own, which means that when one of their compatriots die, they emit a chemical signal that basically says there’s a shell available, attracting more crabs … essentially it is this gruesome chain reaction.”
Hermit crabs are an important part of tropical environments as they disperse seeds and aerate and fertilise soil, so their decline could have a significant impact on surrounding ecosystems.
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-cocos-islands
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