07/23/2021 / By Virgilio Marin

More than half a million hermit crabs in the Indian and Pacific Oceans are dying because they mistake plastic waste for a home, according to a study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.

Australian and British researchers found that around 508,000 hermit crabs have died taking shelter inside plastic waste on Cocos (Keeling) Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean. The researchers noted that the island was “drowning” in around 414 million pieces of plastic. Meanwhile, another 61,000 perished in the same way 8,000 miles away on Henderson Island in the South Pacific.

“When we were surveying debris on the islands, I was struck by how many open plastic containers contained hermit crabs, both dead and alive,” said Jennifer Lavers, a researcher at the University of Tasmania‘s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and the lead researcher of the study.

SNIP