HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I was searching on google, and found a hermit crab Quiz made by PETA. It starts off with a few facts, but they then try to brain wash you..
The question was:

"You hear your cousin begging his Mom for a hermit crab. You start to tell him all the reasons why he shouldn't buy one, but he says "Someone is going to buy him anyway, why not me? I'll take good care of him"

The choices were:
a. Well I guess your right. As long as you can take care of him well, I guess it's ok.

b. It doesn't matter. No matter how hard you take care of hermit crabs you still can't give them everything they need!

c. I want one too!


I knew that they would have said letter "b" was correct. I picked letter a to see what the quiz would say to me.

I get a Buzz and a
WRONG
It doesn't matter how hard you try, you still can't get a hermit crab everything you need. By giving your money to people who sell hermit crabs you are telling them it's ok to steal them from their home and make them live in cages. If you want to enjoy crabs without hurting them, rent an underwater documentary from the library. Don't buy live animals!

First off, they had no right to say "Steal" since they are allowed to take them off the beach's.

Plus, my crabs are not getting hurt by living in a tank where they are taken care of well. I really don't agree with them. I won't buy a crab from a store with bad conditions because that is supporting selling them in a bad place. However, I do buy them from the good pet stores because they are giving the crabs a good home. It's not like they will be getting back to the wild anytime soon, so why not buy them from good pet stores?

Here is the quiz if you wanted to see it:
http://www.petakids.com/crabquiz.html

What are your thoughts?

Yeah, I saw this site a few months ago and I wrote them saying their information was not well researched, but of course like most people they refused to listen.

Mhm, I saw this before, too. I went through the roof.


It's just ignorance... in my opinion.

Yeah, PETA also says not to drink milk because dairies are cruel to the cows and the milking machines hurt. Yeah right. I'd like to know how they would control a 2000lb animal to milk it if it was being hurt. And anyway, calves are born with teeth and bite their mom's teats!

I agree with you guys that they have poorly researched info and don't listen enough. But I admit I do kind of share the view that we can't ever give them all they need as pets, due to their significantly shortened lifespans in captivity.

We simply don't know enough about their needs as organisms. Until we can get them to live for the decades they are capable of in the wild, I will always feel a small amount of guilt for ever having purchased them... I'm more in favour of adoption. The stores here in Australia nearly all have terrible conditions so I find myself not wanting to support selling them as pets

I wish it were possible for me to give them all they needed to happily live that long in captivity.

Well, since this comes from the organization who released hermit crabs on the shores of New Jersey, I'm not surprised.
(I'm searching for the website where I read this, can't find it right now)
I agree with PETA in many points, but their methods really scare me.
I did laugh about that "rename your town and we give your lots of veggie burgers"-offer to Hamburg, New York. Living in the German Hamburg, I can clearly imagine the reaction of the people here

i've seen this before, it's pretty pethetic!

That's PETA for ya.

PETA is sooooo over the top. They’re just ridiculous, really. Obviously they have good intensions, but very extreme good intensions…. and yes.. that is PETA for you!

Aussie Crabber,

There's hermit crabs that have lived in captivity for decades! Wish I could find the link, but I read a story online a few days ago about a woman who had kept 2 hermit crabs alive and healthy since 1975! I think it was on Crista's site.

We're just now figuring out what their needs truly are. Crabbing has come a long way since I got my first hermit crab in the early 80s. Back then, people just assumed that room temps were fine and since they weren't marine, they didn't need saltwater. When I decided to get back into this hobby, I was amazed at all they needed and how far research had come!

Peta used to be a good organization, but then they got too extreme. They're not going to be happy until everyone is vegan...even your dogs and cats! I belong to another online forum and we had a peta enthusiast try to tell us its healthy for a dog or a cat to be vegan! Talk about cruelty to animals!

Starmaiden, The woman who has hermit crabs for decades is Carol of Crabworks. I believe she has a site with photos of her two long lived PP's.

Meet Jonathan and Kate
http://www.geocities.com/hermit_crabs/carol/

Wow, that's amazing! I want to read more on what her conditions are! Unfortunately most of the links aren't working on that site but thanks for the link jedediah

This makes me excited - I hope my crabs can live as long! It's my goal to achieve that.

Thanks guys! :)

Aussie Crabber wrote:...I do kind of share the view that we can't ever give them all they need as pets, due to their significantly shortened lifespans in captivity.

We simply don't know enough about their needs as organisms. ...

You're right, we can't give everything they need, most notably a method to reproduce. The truth is that unless we have the resource to bring up a hermit crab zoea to its final form, we're not giving them everything they need.

As Jedidah mentioned, PETA releases "rescued" hermit crabs on North atlantic shores (I think I heard that from Christa). The crabs won't stand a chance in the cold atlantic shore, even if they're free. I'd personally say it's about as humane as rescuing penguins from the zoo and placing them on the arctic circle, where they'd probably be instantaneously slaughtered by polar bears.

That said, I see HCA as officially neither for nor against PETA, because while PETA is concerned about whether we have the right to have hermit crabs as pets, HCA is only concerned about HOW we should take proper care of hermit crabs. Technically, I find the two groups irrelevant, so I avoid HCA vs. PETA mindset and conversations.

Although I do agree that we can't give our hermit crabs everything they would have in the wild, I do believe that we can provide a nice loving replica of what they would normally have. So, I don't agree 100% with PeTA's views on hermit crabs in captivity, but...

starmaiden wrote:Yeah, PETA also says not to drink milk because dairies are cruel to the cows and the milking machines hurt. Yeah right. I'd like to know how they would control a 2000lb animal to milk it if it was being hurt. And anyway, calves are born with teeth and bite their mom's teats!

...I do agree that there is cruelty in the dairy industry, so please, starmaiden, before you completely didregard the idea, read what they have to say: http://www.goveg.com/factoryFarming_Cows_Dairy.asp