Hermit Crab Legal Research Paper

[Yadokari.Nation]

Hello HCA!

I'm a long-time member of the HCA and am also a law student. I'm currently writing a legal Note, which is like a long legal article, about hermit crabs in the pet industry.

A lot of the knowledge I have about hermit crab care and the industry as it stands is from experience over the years and just reading things online. For a legal Note, though, I have to provide detailed citations to sources. I'm looking for links or suggestions for where I can find certain reliable information, some of which I believe is on the HCA forum.

I'm looking for

(1) archived posts/threads/forums about successful hermit crab breeding in captivity (specifically for the number of known captive breeders),

(2) information about the oldest crabs in captivity,

(3) information about any scientific studies of terrestrial hermit crabs, specifically purple pinchers, and

(4) any hard numbers describing how many crabs are gathered/sold each year within the United States.

Any help or hints would be greatly appreciated! There is not a lot of legal literature about hermit crabs (surprise surprise), so I need other reliable sources.

Thank you,

Caroline

[Brittanybaby22]

http://hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/ ... 67&t=92518

[jarteta97]

http://www.shellpoint.org/news/2005/070105-crabs.html

That's what I could find. It might not help, but I thought I would try

[wodesorel]

How official does the info need to be to stand up to scrutiny?

(1) archived posts/threads/forums about successful hermit crab breeding in captivity (specifically for the number of known captive breeders)

If you only consider those people who get babies onto land for their first molt:
Curlz : http://hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/ ... 67&t=88646
Her Site (in German): http://curlz-crabs.blogspot.de/

Nat_addicted to HC's : http://hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/ ... 67&t=91033
Her facebook for the babies: https://www.facebook.com/aussiecrabs

CinnamonVanilla: http://hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/ ... 39&t=89601
(Disputed in the German forums.)

Otherwise actual breeding is pretty common for anyone with a number of crabs and proper conditions.


(2) information about the oldest crabs in captivity,

Carol's. Jonathon was alive as of last year, which makes it 38 years together:
http://www.vetstreet.com/our-pet-expert ... -long-life

Actual age is unknown. I see a lifespan of 50 to 70 years in the wild quoted a lot, but no scientific evidence to support that. There is no known way to accurately age hermit crabs since they molt traces of age away and do not have otoliths as some places have incorrectly reported.


(3) information about any scientific studies of terrestrial hermit crabs, specifically purple pinchers, and

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en ... 6&as_sdtp=
(If that link doesn't work, go to scholar.google.com and search for coenobita clypeatus. Most are behind pay walls but if you're in college you should be able to access them through your library free of charge. )

(4) any hard numbers describing how many crabs are gathered/sold each year within the United States.
That is an unknown. You may be able to contact Fish and Wildlife and see if they keep records of what comes in yearly. Going by articles that interview different importers, it's really high:
1 million a year: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/13/nyreg ... -here.html
200,000 a year (yeah, that's me being interviewed. We covered a lot more on the phone!): http://articles.philly.com/2014-08-11/n ... shore-town
And that is only two out of DOZENS of importers. FMR is reported to be a huge importer as well but I haven't seen numbers for them.


Let me know if you can think of anything else you might need. I've read a lot and saved a lot of links over the years, so can probably direct you to something that will help!

[Hermit-Yote]

I apologize I don't have anything specific to contribute, but I appreciate what you're doing!

[Yadokari.Nation]

Thank you everyone for the information!

I'm doing more research into the history of owning hermit crabs as pets for the introduction portion of my paper. Does anyone know how long people have kept hermit crabs as pets, or when they became commercially available?

[aussieJJDude]

I think in the early 70's or late 60's hermit crabs became pets for us humans...

[Brittanybaby22]

http://www.mibba.com/Articles/Nature/28 ... -Told-You/ I don't know if this will help u on your report or not

[wodesorel]

1953, which is the earliest I can find referenced:

http://www.seashellshop.com/Hermit-Crab-Specialists/
http://www.fmrpets.com/aboutus.ivnu

[Curlz]

CinnamonVanilla: http://hermitcrabassociation.com/phpBB/ ... 39&t=89601
(Disputed in the German forums.)

This 'project' should not be listed. Still unclear if it was a real breeding project. Not clear if it were land or marine hermit crabs. The details does did not match any science information, etc.... strange and not really approved.

thank you @ Caroline for asking. You have my permission to use any of my information (and / or pictures)