{"id":217908,"date":"2025-10-22T13:11:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T13:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/217908\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T13:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T13:11:14","slug":"millions-of-red-crabs-begin-annual-migration-on-christmas-island-as-numbers-skyrocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/217908\/","title":{"rendered":"Millions of red crabs begin annual migration on Christmas Island as numbers ‘skyrocket’"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a tropical island 1,500 kilometres from Australia’s mainland, employers understand if you can not make it to work because of crabs on the road.<\/p>\n

This week, Christmas Island residents are once again sharing their home with millions of the island’s endemic red crabs as they begin their annual migration.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The island’s first major mass crab spawning event has started earlier than usual.\u00a0 (ABC Pilbara: Alistair Bates)<\/p>\n

Christmas Island National Park’s acting manager, Alexia Jankowski, said the season kicked off when the first rain began over the weekend.<\/p>\n

About half of the island’s 200 million crabs will leave their forest burrows and make the journey to the rocky shores to release their eggs.<\/p>\n

The eggs then spend about a month in the ocean as larvae before they return to land as tiny crabs.<\/p>\n

During the process, a red sea of crabs spills over the island’s roads, homes and schools.<\/p>\n

“We have to put rakes in our cars and leaf blowers \u2026 to ensure the crabs have a safe passage,” she said.<\/p>\n

She said residents also avoid driving on the roads in the early morning and late afternoon to give the crabs “freedom”.<\/p>\n

“Everyone here really values the crabs, and it’s seen as a real treat,” she said.Earlier season, more crabs<\/p>\n

Ms Jankowski said the migration had begun slightly earlier than in previous years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With more rain forecast this week, she said residents were preparing for the “onslaught” of crabs moving through the town.<\/p>\n

\"Close<\/p>\n

The Christmas Island red crab is endemic to the 134 square kilometre island. (ABC Pilbara: Mietta Adams)<\/p>\n

Christmas Island National Park’s threatened species coordinator, Brendon Tiernan, said the crab population had “skyrocketed” over the past few years.<\/p>\n

He said the red crab population was estimated to be about 55 million in the early 2000s, but was now approximately 100 million.<\/p>\n

Mr Tiernan said the introduction of a microwasp to the island in 2016 had reduced one of the main threats to the crabs \u2014 the yellow crazy ants.<\/p>\n

“As a result, we’ve now had a number of incredible returns of baby crabs,” he said.<\/p>\n

Carry rakes, work from home<\/p>\n

Resident Megs Powell said up to 100 crabs can line her driveway, with locals carpooling to be on “crab duty” and help rake them out of the way.<\/p>\n

“Leaving the street can be really difficult \u2026 a lot of people, if they can, will work from home,” she said.<\/p>\n

The female crabs carry up to 100,000 eggs, and the Parks Australia team helps rake them off the roads, stopping traffic.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Islanders may work from home or carpool to avoid crushing the crabs on the roads. (ABC Pilbara: Alistair Bates)<\/p>\n

“It can go from taking a couple of minutes like normal, or up to 10 to 20 minutes if you get stuck in a stop zone,” Ms Powell said.<\/p>\n

“They save thousands of little crab lives every day when they do that.”<\/p>\n

Director of Community Services Oliver Lines described the migration like a red carpet being laid out along the shoreline.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been here 34 years and it still fills me with quite a lot of wonder, it never ceases to amaze me,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Somehow, those tiny little crabs will go back to where those parent crabs started in the jungle.”<\/p>\n

The chair of the Christmas Island Tourism Association, David Watchorn, said while crabs can be seen all year, the migration attracts hundreds more tourists to the island.<\/p>\n

“It’s one of the most amazing wildlife experiences you can see on the planet,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Everyone has it on a bucket list to come and see”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The red crab migration leads to road closures on the island. (Supplied: Will Parker\/ WeXploreTravel)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a tropical island 1,500 kilometres from Australia’s mainland, employers understand if you can not make it to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[93348,93345,93347,89497,821,93349,93344,93346,90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-217908","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-annual-migration","9":"tag-christmas-island","10":"tag-crab-spawn","11":"tag-endemic-species","12":"tag-migration","13":"tag-parks-australia","14":"tag-red-crabs","15":"tag-remote-island","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom","20":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}