Story: Unusually dry weather has delayed the annual season
Millions of red crabs migrate to Christmas Island
Christmas Island, Australia
Cancers usually travel from within
The island to the ocean where they mate
Brendan Tiernan / Field Program Coordinator / Parks Australia
“The last six to nine months of 2023 were exceptionally dry, so dry that when crabs normally migrate in October and November, we had no rain, and they did not migrate and this dry period continued until January of this year. So, for the first time on record, Crabs appeared in February, but in smaller numbers.
“If the rain doesn't come or doesn't continue and they start migrating, the crabs will either hunker down, so they'll kind of wait to see if the rains come back or not, or if they come back or not.” “If they don’t go far, they will actually go back to the forest.”
