The Crab Street Journal is a creation of the Land Hermit Crab Owners Society. This online community for land hermit crab owners was established in 1999 as Yahoo! Group and has continued to grow and expand. Our focus is providing free access to accurate and current care information for pet land hermit crabs. Our site is accessible to all without a need for registration but to interact with other members, you must create a free account.

The Crab Street Journal is the flagship site for the Land Hermit Crab Owners Society C.A.R.E. program. It encompasses all of the aspects of the program.

LHCOS advocates to improve the lives of captive land hermit crabs and protect and preserve wild hermit crabs, their habitat and resources like shells.

LHCOS Core Values

  1. Conservation & Community
  2. Advocacy
  3. Research & Rescue
  4. Education

Conservation:

Reducing plastics and improving and preserving natural habitats are part of our conservation efforts. Establishing a captive breeding program is also a vital part of our conservation efforts.

Community:

Our goal is to build a community of quality hermit crab care sites that can be relied upon for accurate and current care practices. The Crustacean C.A.R.E. Coalition program brings hermit crab care websites under the umbrella of LHCOS. The Local Representatives and Junior Local Representatives programs add a local focus to our program.

Advocacy:

Our goal is to raise awareness about safe practices. The Say No to Painted Shells campaign is one example. In 2016, LHCOS/CSJ began exhibiting at pet expos. With a crowd of 25,000 people we brought our message to the public in a big way. We returned to the expo in 2018 and in 2019 we added a local monthly exotic pet show to our schedule.

Research:

Our goal is to continue to use existing research on the Coenobita species to further our knowledge and improve our care practices. We reach out to researchers, biologists and students to gain access to valuable data and seek input.

Rescue:

We advocate rescue and re-homing over purchasing. Our program was the very first hermit crab adoption program. It is growing at a rapid pace.

Education:

Our goal is to provide accurate and current information to the public free of charge so they have the information they need to properly care for their pet land hermit crabs. We accomplish this through online articles, care sheets, informative videos, pet expos, social media, sharing information on our forums as well as working with pet stores to improve their conditions. In 2018 the Claws in the Classroom program was launched to provide assistance to classrooms keeping pet hermit crabs. Current classroom grants provide the wrong information and the wrong list of supplies. We contacted the grant program but did not receive a reply. We decided to create our own program.


Our history is long…
CSJ has just migrated to it’s fourth new home…starting on Yahoo Groups back in 1999, then to NukeEVO, then XOOPS and now here on BuddyPress. All relevant articles and content have moved with us over the years. So while the items posted have my photo and name, I am not the author of all this valuable information. The original author has been credited where ever possible. We thank all those dedicated crabbers who went before us and contributed to our vast library of information.

Say NO to painted shells

Watch the CNN video on how hermit crabs are forced into painted shells

 

Crustacean Care Coalition
Proud member since 2006