Millions of confused crabs stuck on Christmas Island

There are over 100 million red crabs on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean – and they are not leaving

Unusually dry weather has left of millions of crabs on Christmas Island confused as they delay their annual migration to the sea.

There are over 100 million red crabs on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, much of which is designated as a national park. The crabs are unique to the island and protected by Australian law.

Authorities say “exceptionally dry” conditions have put a dampener on this season’s migration, where the mass of red crabs usually blocks off traffic in a normal year.

They travel to the sea to mate.

“In the last 12 months, we got about half our average rainfall for that period of time, and that was enough to make the island look extremely desperate, dry and dusty,” said Brendan Tiernan, the threatened species field programme coordinator for Parks Australia.

“And it kept the crabs from migrating.”

Christmas Island crabs (rex)

This year is the first time the crabs have migrated as late as February since Parks Australia started tracking migration in the 1980s, he added.

The migration sees the crabs journey from the interior of the island to the ocean, where they mate. The females then stay behind in burrows near the ocean to hatch their eggs and the males return inland.

Christmas Island is a former British territory first spotted on Christmas Day, 1643, by a British sea captain, William Mynors. Australia has controlled the island since 1957. However, Christmas Island is closer to Java in Indonesia than to Australia.

Ethnic Chinese and Malays, the descendants of indentured mine workers, make up 85 per cent of the population. Buddhist and Taoist temples, scattered around the island, testify to its mixed heritage, as do the noodle shops and the trilingual road signs.

On the world stage, though, Christmas Island is known as the site of Australia’s main offshore processing centre for asylum-seekers. One camp on Christmas Island can accommodate up to 2,000 people, which is more than the island’s permanent population.