UK OVERSEAS TERRITORIES CONSERVATION FORUM
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Objectives of the project include mapping land crab spawning and recruitment sites, estimating abundance, estimating land crab spawning site fidelity, growth and age and carrying out public outreach. Research has been advancing well with all accessible coastal areas surveyed for spawning activity in 2013. It was discovered that spawning takes place along a lot of the coastline, with the majority occurring at North East Bay. Small microchips were implanted into the claws of the land crabs allowing them to be monitored and data to be gathered. Information collected can therefore determine whether individual land crabs spawn at the same sites year to year, growth rate, length of life and the size of the Ascension land crab population. 310 crabs were fitted with microchips in the 2013 spawning season and 27 of these were recaptured at North East Bay during the March 2014 spawning peak, indicating that some crabs do spawn every year and at the same sites. The research will continue during the 2015 spawning season. 

Checking the microchip in a recaptured land crab. 


© Ascension Island Government Conservation Department
(Projects / Conservation Actions, 15 of 31 - Slide ref. 644)