Was stationed in Guam for 4 years. Those crabs were all over the place AND the only critter that was a protected species. Everything you pulled from the ocean and pretty much any land animal (feral hogs) were fair game with coconut crab being the only exception.
Not sure if the regulations have changed over the years, though I'm sure they have had some changes over decades. "On Guam, coconut crabs must have a carapace of at least three inches wide to be eaten and at least four inches wide to be legally sold."
@@ytr3488 I remember seeing a doc about their migration, I dt remember where (seems to b Xmas Island), but they were literally covering roads & people had no choice than roll all over them with their cars...
sorry this is not true = the body/tail flesh is nice-ish... but the claws n head taste awful. Stick to turtle and trumpeter and enjoy the Sth Pacific diet
@@andrewbyronloveshire5209That's why you control it's diet for a few days. Only God knows what it's been eating, since it's basically a armored vulture and could have eaten some really rotten stuff 🤮
One RU-vid video claims that coconut crabs are inedible because some of the things they eat are toxic and this passes to their flesh. I guess it's not true.
Nobody refuse to eat them, there just aren’t enough of them. They’re endangered and if allowed to eat them they will go extinct because they’re easy to catch since they’re so slow.
@@bichettmeeh2578 why don’t you Google if coconut crabs are endangered. They’re disappearing one island at a time. They’re not extinct if that’s what you mean but they’re endangered.
@@bichettmeeh2578 Just because you guys eat them doesn’t mean they’re not endangered, HOWEVER; Indigenous peoples tend to be the only people aside from actual wildlife researchers that practice or try to go out of their way to practice sustainability in hunting, the crabs have been a food source for island people for decades upon decades, if they’re eaten responsibly, I don’t see any reason why indigenous islanders can’t enjoy the crabs, the problem comes from tourists coming to the islands to eat the crabs themselves; Hundreds of tourists flying out to have a big crab feast is.. Not optimistic for the species, some locals enjoying the crab they’ve been eating for like ever now though? Totally fine lol
Biggest issue with that is that they grow very slowly, it takes a male crab about 10 years to grow to the size they are normally eaten at, and a female crab over 20 to reach that same size. They do lay tens to hundreds of thousands of eggs at a time (depending on size and age), but the cost of feeding them for 10 years, and needing pools for the aquatic larvae and semi-aquatic post-larvae for their first month and then year, would still be hefty.
@@jesarablack1661nah you would just use an aquaponics system for growing the coconuts, and their waste would feed the plants. Someone with an engineering degree can take that idea to the next level because it’s scalable fr. Or build a man made island like China did, just farm them on the whole island
I'm just glad these guys are slow as hell. Can you imagine one of these chasing after you at 35mph as it clicks it's claws and going "You'll never get away with me secret krabby-patty formuler!"
On Trinidad's eastern mangrove coast, annua "crab runs" were an annual event with crabs running across the coastal road like a moving carpet! An amazing sight.
We Koreans love eating crabs. We have native red crab species in our waters. The blue crab that invaded Mediterranean Sea and Italian or Tunisian waters also invaded in Korean waters recently, too. But Koreans come to love eating the blue crabs. Korea imports most of the blue crabs from the Tunisian fishermen and crab factories. Now we start importing blue crabs from Itay, too. Please, export all the blue crabs you can catch to Korea, we love them all and will eat'em all.
@@wxlurker The main preparation that I've tried is with coconut milk, "pumpkin" tips and sometimes taro. It does taste like coconut, due to this preparation. I've never tried it with drawn butter, where it's steamed/boiled in water. It's RICH, though. The texture is closer to Dungeness Crab than King Crab, or lobster. It's kinda hard to describe the actual "taste". Hope that helps...
My first time in Jamaica, we were driving back from a club at night. Suddenly, it sounded like we were driving over potato chips, then when we stopped to look, there were thousands of these on the road. I felt bad about it, but there was no way to miss them, they covered the roads.
It’s called the great migration, it’s typically normal and happens with many animals, birds, snakes in Canada, crabs, toads, turtles, even with deer in Alabama I’ve noticed it. It’s usually hundreds of these animals migrating to other areas for food, warmth, or watered environments.
the first lives deep under water and never gets out of it the 2nd can't live in water so uh... never gonna happen (I say the mantis shrimp would win ez pz tho :P)
I was stationed on Diego Garcia, in the middle of the Indian ocean, in the late 70s. These crabs are as big as dogs, and they were _everywhere._ Big and dumb. When you'd walk down the beach, any crab in the surf would hear you coming. They start crawling back towards the jungle. But invariably they would get as far as one's own intended route, at which point the stupid creatures would halt and turn towards you with pinchers raised in that "I challenge you to a DUEL!" pose. So you'd need to walk around them. If there happened to be a bunch of them, it would really ruin your walk. We were not allowed to kick them across the beach; they were protected even then, along with the feral donkeys and chickens that lived there too.
In Indonesia we called coconut crab as Umang, and we have Umang island that many of it's live there, and you can stayed at that island and you can enjoy that umang as a dish.
We eat so many Blue Crabs in NC that they are over fished and catch limits are ever decreasing. I find it odd that the Italians haven't incorporated them into their diet yet. My Sicilian family here loves them..
@@rosemarietolentino3218 LOL just eat two..they must be cheap if they are invasive. I get it though. folks can be hard headed. Much like loin fish over here...its nearly free but people cant get past the "Its poisonous'' thing so, we just toss them on the bank to die. .
There's something seriously cute about crabs having their own bridge. I hope they appreciate the efforts humans go to to protect them from the dangers that humans created in the first place.
Spent some time in the pacific, every island that I visited that had them, ate them. People often kept them like pigs eating their scraps and then eating them when that got big enough. I also heard that the really big ones were some sort of spirit that could lure you to your death.
The real trick is to make a spicy thin marinara sauce(I have heard it called a Diablo sauce) and boil the crabs in that. It is a Long Island thing from what I can tell.
They are good boiled if you know what you're doing. In their soft shell stage they are really tasty in a sandwich, if you batter and fry them. Soft shell crab is really popular in N.C.
My late Okinawan mom told me that back in the day, Okinawa did exile criminals and mentally ill to the Miyako Islands and Yaeyama Islands. When Okinawa mainlanders find out that the person's family was from Miyako jima for generations, someone was probably from a criminal or mentally ill background. There's also another small island where ppl who had leprosy were exiled to.
"The first leprosy patients are sent into forced quarantine at Kalawao on Moloka'i. About 3,000 more follow over the next 18 years. How the disease originates and spreads was a mystery, so authorities turn to isolation as the best attempt to treat it." Leprosy (Mycobacterium leprae) can be cured with the same meds used for TB (Mycobacterium tuberculosis).
I spent a week and a half in St Crois staying at a motel called the Buccaneer. A trail that was around 200 feet from the hotel had many of these crabs and their burrows. People had fed them all kinds of crazy leftovers ,noodles ,fries, pancakes, and I saw one eating a part of a California style cheeseburger. It was truly bizarre.
I've had coconut crab and it's very tasty. It's different from regular crabs, it's naturally sweet, succulent, and similar to Dungeness crabs. However, that's about the difference. Its good to try it once but my favorite is still large Maryland Blue crabs or Alaskan King crabs (with the body not just the legs).
Damn, Red Crabs carry's tungsten in their exoskeleton is something to think about. Pure tungsten has the toughest heat resistance of any metal alloy ore on earth and carry's a high potency of magnesium and Red Crabs can store these properties in it's shell/system is quite interesting
What does that even mean "Pure tungsten has the toughest heat resistance of any metal alloy ore on earth and carry's a high potency of magnesium." All those words are contradictory. Pure, alloy, ore, magnesium.
The skull and bones found on Gardner Island had been lost for a long time but were recently found again; it seems that the coconut crabs had completely eaten away the front portion of the skull to get at the brain and that, compounded with the fact that the crabs had cracked open the bones and consumed all the DNA containing soft tissue made a positive identification of the remains as Amelia Earhart next to impossible.
In Japan, whereas it is not so common, you can eat Coconut Crabs in Ishigaki Island, Okinawa. As you may know, yes, just Coconut Crabs lived in Ishigaki Island. It is like blow fish, carefully removed from poison area. If you are interesting in, you can go there and try it!
@@loisdaniels6778 It's not a part of the coconut crab, it's related to diet; they enjoy the Sea-Mango, which is toxic to humans, and the chemicals permeate the meat. So it's more about catching and feeding them coconuts and other human-tolerated fruits to culture a more appealing flavor and clean them out.
@@TheAdarkerglow Another commenter said you need to feed them Coconut for 7 days to make them taste good. Would doing so also rid them of the toxicity of the Sea-Mango, so that you could safely eat them? ( also any way to tell the toxic ones by sight ? ). Thx
I was once killed and eaten by a coconut crab. Another time, I ate the crab while it ate me. There was more of me, so I won that round... minus my legs of course.
Great video! 🙋👍 My dad served in the south pacific during WWII. He used to tell stories of the coconut crab cutting biscuits from a shovel handle. He said that you had better check your foxhole before or soon after jumping into it. 😲🦀
I’ve seen these in Tahiti .. My first and last experience seeing these…once I figured out what it was coming out as it was starting to get dark I sat in a lawn chair and waited in the dark and there they came! It was amazing…they were more afraid of me than I of them…
I was surprised to hear these crabs aren't popular in Japan. Seeing they're at these people can be traced beck to the root of practically every endangered species that live in or around the ocean! These crabs are lucky.
The Crab is natures darliing. It has been selected over and over through time. Or rather it's bioform has successfully evolved numerous times. The future belongs to the crabs. Next Week on "Crabs in Spaaaaace".
Coconut Crab that eat mostly coconuts are known for their tender deliciousness to be very sweet and delicate. Each crab yields an average of roughly 9 pounds of premium crabmeat - and one can only imagine how many Crab cakes that comes to. I can imagine how questionable their diets might be, however, because they're the only ones on the beach who can crack open a human skull and feast upon its contents... - That's a hard pass on Mad Cow Disease from me, thank you...
Maybe can raise a few and just make sure to feed them coconuts and fruits so they’re sweet lol idk I wouldn’t cause I’m Jewish and don’t eat shellfish but I wouldn’t judge. Surely would if nothing else around lol
are jews allowed to eat scampies? like the small little ones, when they so youre young they dont have any shells, or is the ban just generally on the species of all shell-fish, even if it would be a breed that has no shell at all - dunno if its possibly but just theoriticaly @@YaakovEzraAmiChi
Maybe I can help... CJD (The Human form of Mad Cow disease) can be propagated when human brains from human to human by harvesting human brains and reintroducing them back into the human food supply over & over again. Since Coconut Crabs possess the ability to crack open human skulls and feasting upon their contents over and over - the possibilty exists for CJD to be spawned and then introduced back into the crab food supply and the human food supply as well... @@jb5546
"You might wonder why coconut crabs are listed as 'vulnerable' if people don't eat them. The answer... people eat them still ..." 🤣🤣🤣. I was thinking 'I would eat them, still cuz they look delicious' So proud to be people 🤗
If Coconut crabs evolved to live in water. Might be the end of us all. They could feast, get big and become super predators. No more shark warning at the beach. Imagine getting pulled under by a giant pincher grabbing your leg.
In Maryland, the blue crab is one of our favorite foods. They are steamed (not boiled) in a mixture of beer and vinegar for about 9-10 minutes and dusted with a dry collection of spices called Old Bay or J.O. or perhaps a few others. Cracked open and the soft white meat is enjoyed by young and old alike, especially with a cold beer and some friends! That makes for a good weekend!!
I steam them the same way in NJ with J.O.. I also like to cook half the claws I remove in beer such as Budweiser before placing in the frig for a few hours to cool off. Next time you make them, get 40 of Budweiser, take some claws off, and try boiling them. You can add some J.O. to the beer when you're boiling or sprinkle some over the claws when you remove. Just remember to throw in the frig for an hour or so.
Mmmmmm. Now I want crab! Here in the Pacific Northwest we have Dungeness crab . I like to buy it right off the docks by the bay. I noticed last season that leftover crab meat freezes really well.
So, if they can't swim, how did they propogate into all those thousands of isolated islands? By floating on coconuts across the ocean? During the ice age?
I’m from PA, USA & used to steam crabs at a restaurant. We used Old Bay seasoning at steam for perfect crabs. The live crabs went into ice water bath first - ‘so they kept their claws on when steamed’. Good times. Best ‘benefits’ ever because they fed us & their crab soup was incredible.
