Over half a million hermit hermit crabs (or crabs) have died from plastic waste on some tropical beaches. A real massacre of animals that remain trapped or that end up ingesting microplastics which then lead them towards a slow suffocation.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himOver half a million hermit crabs (or hermit crabs) have died from plastic litter on some tropical beaches. A real massacre of animals that remain trapped or that end up ingesting microplastics which then lead them towards a slow suffocation.
The pieces of plastic on the beaches create physical barriers and traps that hermit crabs cannot escape. Our coasts are now invaded and even the most remote areas of the Earth do not escape this increasingly persistent pollution. Researchers led by Jennifer Lavers, during an experiment, were analyzing the debris on some tropical beaches, but what they found is truly shocking.
“We were struck by how many hermit crabs were inside the plastic bottles, some were still alive, but hundreds were dead,” Lavers explains.
Hermit hermit crabs are very important in the balance of the ecosystem because for example, they disperse substances that have the ability to fertilize the soil. For this reason, researchers from the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) of the University of Tasmania, the Museum of Natural History in London and the organization Two Hands project, were alarmed by seeing the death.
In fact, 508 were found dead due to plastic waste in the Cocos Islands archipelago, in the Indian Ocean, between Australia and Sri Lanka, while 61 were found on Henderson Island in the South Pacific.
Sifting through four islands of the Cocos archipelago and Henderson Island, they noticed that the hermit crabs died because they were stuck in plastic. Real traps that feed a vicious circle. These hermit crabs, in fact, are able to smell the smell of their dead similar to appropriate the shells they use to protect themselves from predators. They thus enter the containers, but then they become trapped.
"A hermit crab that dies after trying to build a plastic house triggers an insidious chain reaction: the smell attracts another who dies, and so on, until a very strong signal is produced, which attracts most of the hermit crabs in the area. It's not so much a domino effect as it is an avalanche, ”explains Alex Bond, curator of the Natural History Museum in London and a collaborator of the studio.
“These results are shocking but perhaps they shouldn't surprise us. These beaches are full of wildlife that are directly affected by plastic pollution, ”says Lavers.
A very serious problem, but one that can be solved by removing the litter from the beach.
"It's not just about removing the plastic from the beach because it's unsightly, but potentially because it's killing the hermit crab population."
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