The Whole Wide World

As soon as I posted the last entry about crabs, I went to socials to post photos of said crabs. As I was looking through recent photos on my phone, I realized I’d neglected the crabbiest bit about the crabs on Palmyra Atoll…that’s Crab Town! 

Crab Town

One of my first field trips on station was to Crab Town. I kind of knew what I was in for, but Crab Town is one of those things that is hard to comprehend unless you see it. All of our food waste on station is collected in bright orange five gallon Home Depot buckets. Each morning we bring a clean empty bucket into the galley and put our scraps and ends into it as we go throughout the day. At the end of the day, we secure the lid on the bucket and place it on the back porch for the maintenance team to collect a couple times a week. Upon collection, the buckets are transported by a UTV to a place called ‘Crab Town’ on the other side of the island (all of a mile or so away). 

At Crab Town, the lids are taken off and the buckets are scattered about on the ground on their sides. Within mere moments of the buckets being tipped onto their sides, the bushes surrounding the area start shaking. As the rustling gets louder and louder, the hoards of crabs start appearing. Hoards is no exaggeration. The crabs know their local feeding spot well. Within minutes there are hundreds of crabs everywhere. It’s hard to take a single step without having to replace your foot to avoid crushing a crab. They spend hours, eating their way through the scraps. It’s a really wild sight.

On one occasion there was a coconut crab who spent the better part of a night attempting to get into one of the buckets on the back porch of the galley. I am surprised this doesn’t happen more often. The lids really clip on so that it takes two hands to pry them off, but considering coconut crabs can open a coconut with their claws-the buckets don’t seem too far of a stretch. He managed to chip away quite a bit of the lid, but didn’t get in-in. He must have lost hope as the damaged bucket was their in the morning, but he didn’t come back in the following nights to continue his efforts.

If you hop over to my Instagram, you’ll find a video and photos of a Crab Town feast. Don’t forget to give me a follow while you are there! 

Annemarie xo