Speaking Out Against Ghost Crabbing

Blog Post By: Jillian Sower, summer sea turtle intern

    Trends come and go, but they aren’t limited to just fashion or fun café drinks. There’s a new one taking beaches by storm, and it’s called ghost crabbing, or ghost crab hunting, and it can potentially cause harm to sea turtle mothers and hatchlings.
    Ghost crabbing involves wandering the beach at night with bright flashlights and nets in an attempt to stun and capture ghost crabs. The game is very popular with both kids and adults; during our Night Walk program, on multiple occasions, we’ve come across groups of people with bright white lights combing the beach in order to find ghost crabs.
    Now as we know, white lights can cause false crawls in our nesting sea turtles, which is when a turtle crawls up on the beach intending to nest, but for some reason (such as bright white lights) she turns around and goes back to the ocean. A turtle can false crawl a couple times and still be okay, but if she crawls too many times she’ll dump her entire clutch in the ocean. Since sea turtles have a very low natural rate of reaching adulthood (about 1 in 1,000) we want every turtle to be able to nest successfully.
    Bright white lights also cause confusion and disorientation in hatchlings. When they hatch, they use the brightest point, which should be the horizon, to guide them to the ocean. However, when bright lights are present on the beach, they become the brightest source of light, and the hatchlings crawl towards them instead of the ocean. When this happens, the hatchlings use up the valuable energy sources they need to swim to the Sargasso Sea.
    Not only could the bright lights used in this activity cause these problems for our sea turtles, but it’s also highly invasive for the ghost crabs. Think about it: would you want bright lights shined in your eyes, and be so stunned that you can’t move, only to be scooped up in a net?
    This activity has the potential to cause harm to our nesting and hatching sea turtle populations. We try to educate those whom we meet during our night walks and to encourage them to use red lights. Other islands along South Carolina’s coast have been experiencing large numbers of people playing this game on their beaches. You can read more about Kiawah Island’s experience here, https://www.postandcourier.com/news/how-kids-toys-could-be-latest-threat-to-south-carolina/article_87b6e022-78a2-11e8-ae28-4f79f7baebe1.html.
    Hopefully the ghost crabbing trend blows over quickly, for the safety of our sea turtles, and for the overall respect for our wildlife.