Kenting Youth Activity Center employee Huang Shu Huang 黃淑凰 (Pearl) created a happy paradise for hermit crabs, collecting shells for hermit crabs to change their new homes, but in recent years, she found that hermit crabs were devoured by broken shells, originally thought that it was a fisherman’s hand, harming the hermit crab heaven into purgatory, and setting up a camera to collect evidence and finding that the murderer was actually a crab-eating mongoose, scholars further researched accordingly, wrote a crab-eating mongoose behavior survey, appeared in international journals, and unveiled the mystery of the murder of hermit crabs.
黃淑凰 (Pearl) stands near her own created hermit-crab protection area (photo from Huang facebook).
More than 10 years ago, Huang Shuhuang saw hermit crabs carrying plastic bottle caps on their backs and felt deeply that the environment was being destroyed.
Hermit crabs had no shells to replace, so she started to create a happy paradise for hermit crabs in Xiaowan. She collected shells so that hermit crabs could start a family with peace of mind, and won the title of “Mother Hermit Crab”.
Crab-eating mongoose is a rare and rare wild animal in the conservation category. Previous observations have found that they feed on crabs, as well as fish, snails, frogs and other creatures, among other animal resources in Kenting.
Xu Jiaxuan 許嘉軒 a researcher of the Taiwan Marine Environmental Education Promotion Association, made further investigations based on observation records, and wrote a study on the behavior of crab-eating mongoose, which was also published in international journals.
Huang Shuhuang pointed out that the crab-eating mongoose is an environmental indicator of shallow mountain streams in Taiwan, and the accidental recording should be the first time that the crab-eating mongoose was photographed feeding on hermit crabs. There are 3 large and 6 small, which further proves that the local ecology is diverse and the conservation is successful.
Huang Shuhuang builds a happy paradise for hermit crabs at the Kenting Youth Activity Center, collecting shells for hermit crabs to change their homes
Crab eating mongoose