I watch her creep onto the highway. She is almost to the ocean after her 3 week voyage from the inner island tropical forrest. She carries half a million eggs, tucked close to her abdomen, as she attempts to reach the sea where she will release them into the ocean and fulfill her motherly duty. She is nearly half way across the highway when headlights appear on the horizon. For a split moment, I have an impulse to jump in front of her and create a barrier of protection. But the car's approach is too quick, and I helplessly wave my tiny flashlight back and forth across the highway, chanting encouragements for her to "go, go, go". A couple passing by after their dinner joins me, clapping loudly to get her over the center yellow line. But the car is too quick, and the drivers are not looking out for her and her fellow crab mothers. The crunch is unbearable.
I tell Trevor (our plant biologist instructor). He says he's been helping with land crab migration for many years, and it never gets easier to see them crushed while crossing the roads. We (our roads and parking lots) shouldn't be here, I tell him. Yes, he says.
We joined the cousins for a land crab excursion at a local community center near Kenting (at the southern tip of Taiwan). Trevor, a former science teacher now getting his PhD in plant biology, gave an engaging socratic lecture designed for 9 year olds but equally engaging to adults. He showed pictures, asked questions, and helped us be curious about land crabs. His intrigue was contagious.
We learned that Southern Taiwan has the most land crab diversity of anywhere in the world. Slowly adapting from living in the sea, these creatures adjusted to breathing, moving, eating on land but somehow still need to travel to the sea to lay their eggs, requiring a treacherous journey through the forrest and across roads at the full moon. Volunteers gather monthly to help them across the roads and, when they don't make it, scoop them up and throw them into the sea so their eggs have a chance at survival. Only 1 in 1000 eggs will make it; the biggest threats being danger to the mother during the voyage (traffic & yellow ants) and the fact that fish also follow the full moon to the edge of the sea to feast on the eggs after they are released.
Then we all carpool to a site where he suspects crabs may cross. And we wait until we slowly see little movements across the parking lot. We travel to the far side of the highway looking for crabs that need help across the road. Scooping them up by net and releasing them by the water's edge. When they are ready to release their eggs, the moms will enter the water for a few minutes, vibrate electrically to release clouds of tiny eggs before returning to their homes in the forrest.
What an experience. So much learning by seeing and doing. And so much commitment to our creatures by witnessing and feeling their desperation. -- Kim
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