Rescue or leave 'em alone

That was the question yesterday out at Des Moines Beach on my last Beach Naturalist shift of the season (you'll see pics from that in the next post). But for the moment, the three of us were gathered around a large semi-truck tire that had drifted ashore, and from the looks of the seaweed hanging off it, the tire had been adrift awhile.

Now, lodged in the sand, it had created a bit if a mini-tide pool that housed by our count, three red rock crabs, maybe more that were in the rim. These things are effective traps, as the lips of the tire allow the crabs in, but since they can't swim, or craw upside down, these guys can't get out. So they have to wait until food floats in, or eat each other.

Bob, the beach captain, mused that if we took some sticks and made 'em grab onto them, to pull them out (you don't want to mess with getting pinched by a red rock crab. it will hurt), they'd probably just crawl back in again.

So what to do? In the end, we decided to leave 'em. But I still might go down there next low tide and drill a hole or cut a strip out of the tire to give them an exit. Or might might bring the salad tongs to "rescue" the idiots. And Bob's probably right, they'd just crawl back in, to become a snack for an octopus at some point.

Photo by Brian Hackett from Monterey.