According to Christmas Island’s website, millions of red crabs travel to the ocean to breed, taking over the island’s roads, bridges and beaches
The red crabs set out of their shelter simultaneously and head towards the ocean to mate and spawn.
Millions of red crabs in Australia’s Christmas Island have begun their annual migration, forcing some roads to be closed. The red crabs have swarmed across roads, bridges and fields in the ecotourism destination.
Video shared by the news agency Reuters shows the crawling red crabs spread across the fields, crossing roads, bridges and fields as part of their annual journey. Sign boards on roads say the path is closed due to red crab migrations and that vehicle entry is denied. Very few people are seen on the roads.
Some roads on Australia’s Christmas Island are closed to allow red crabs to move safely during their annual migration pic.twitter.com/VM1wLz5smE
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 15, 2022
Chris Bray, a wildlife photographer who stumbled upon the migration, told ABC said when the island woke, it was “red with crabs”. “The next morning there was millions of crabs that just came out of the burrows all across the island,” he said.
Ball said tens of millions of crabs were already on the move.
Notably, world-renowned naturalist David Attenborough termed the annual migration of red crabs as “one of his greatest TV moments”. Metro UK quoted Attenborough as saying that the red crab migration is “like a great scarlet curtain moving down the cliffs and rocks towards the sea”.
According to Christmas Island’s website, millions of red crabs traverse to the ocean to breed, taking over the roads, streams, rocks and beaches. The annual migration is a tourist attraction, bringing in nature lovers from across the globe. During the peak migration period, some parts of the roads are closed, allowing for easy movement.
Christmas Island National Park acting manager Bianca Priest told Metro UK, “Christmas Island National Park staff put up kilometres of temporary barriers, erect signs and close roads across the island to protect millions of crabs leaving their forest homes for the coast.”
The national park’s website said that the migration begins with the first rainfall of the wet season, usually in October or November, and can at times be as late as December or January. The red crabs set out of their shelter simultaneously and head towards the ocean to mate and spawn. The migration is led by male crabs and female crabs join along the way; the exact timing and speed of the movement are influenced by the phase of the moon. They usually spawn before dawn on a receding high tide during the moon’s last quarter.