TAKE ACTION
Ask decision-makers to give Spider Crabs a no-take break during their vulnerable moulting season.
Every year in winter thousands of Australian Giant Spider Crabs, in the largest-known crab migration on the planet, march into the shallows of Port Phillip Bay to seek safety in numbers to moult.
This internationally recognised event attracts locals and tourists from far and wide to experience and celebrate such an incredible natural phenomenon and important part of this strange but spectacular creature’s lifecycle.
But in recent years this congregation of Spider Crabs has started to be intensively targeted by harvesting and the local marine environment impacted.
Sightings have recently been reported as we approach the 2022 season. If you are out and about in Port Phillip Bay, you can be a citizen scientist and report your sightings of the Spider Crabs to ‘Crab Watch’. This contributes to the important work being done by Deakin University and the Victorian Government to understand more about the movements and ecological role of these mysterious marine creatures.
Calling all users of Port Phillip Bay, whether you are out boating, fishing, diving, snorkelling, a licensed tour operator, or even just walking along a pier!
Ask decision-makers to give Spider Crabs a no-take break during their vulnerable moulting season.
Ask decision-makers to give Spider Crabs a no-take break during their vulnerable moulting season.