Brightly Painted Hermit Crabs:
Animated Toys for Our Entertainment? 

You can find them in mall kiosks, in abysmal living conditions, crawling on colored gravel, peering out at you from painted neon shells.  Live hermit crabs are still being painted a variety of colors and sold to passer-bys in eight Florida malls.  Selling live hermit crabs, especially painted ones, sends the message that they are merely animated toys for our entertainment.  These crabs are destined to spend their lives inside glass tanks—bored, lonely, and far from their real homes in the warm sand and surf.  Additionally, hermit crabs must deposit their eggs in the sea, and thus cannot breed in captivity.  This means that every crab sold in malls has been ripped from its natural habitat.  Unfortunately, the rights of land hermit crabs fall somewhere below those of jumbo shrimp and Maine lobsters. General awareness of hermit crabs is practically non-existent and they are generally thought of as food or bait, not "pets".

Throw Away “Pets”

If you purchase one, you probably won’t receive a care sheet. "They’re easy to take care of and they don’t live very long anyways," you'll be told if you question the living conditions or their relatively cheap price. This irresponsible response contributes to the "throw away pet syndrome".   Of course they won’t live long if they aren’t properly cared for.  However, starvation, overheating, boredom, or just plain unhealthy living conditions take hermit crabs’ lives in a slow, painful fashion.

Free-living hermit crabs can live to be 75 years old.  The average lifespan for a captive hermit crab is only 6 months to 1 year.  Hermit crabs are not, as most people generally believe, simple to care for. Food and water aren't enough. Crabs are particular about temperature and humidity; they molt now and then (which calls for special measures); they stress-out easily, get mites sometimes. They can drown in too much water, and they can suffocate in too much heat.  They are nocturnal and shouldn’t be forced to live under glaring lights.  You might also be surprised to learn that captive hermit crabs suffer from boredom and need things to climb on and play with.  And despite their name, they are not hermits. In their natural habitat, hermit crabs live in colonies of 100 or more. 

You Can Help!

• Never buy a hermit crab or support a store that sells them.
• Educate other people about the complex lives of hermit crabs and why they don’t make good pets.
• Speak out!  Write letters to your local newspaper about the hermit crabs and  the throw away pet syndrome.
• Please send letters to the mall manager listed below.  Let them know you won’t patronize their mall until they discontinue the sale of live hermit crabs.