Giant Crab Delivers 50k Signatures to Sunsations

Today, Plight of the Hermies’ giant inflatable crab descended on a Sunsations store in Virginia Beach, accompanied by a 50,000-person-strong petition urging the beach chain to ditch wild hermit crab sales.

The two-meter-tall crab, emblazoned with the slogan, “Sunsations: Hermit crabs aren’t souvenirs!” was flagged by protesters holding signs and handing out postcards encouraging passerby to visit HermitCrabFreedom.com to add their name to the petition.

Protesters documented broken limbs, filthy conditions, and even a dead hermit crab inside the shop during the demonstration.

At the conclusion of the protest, the box of signatures was delivered to the front door of Sunsations’ Virginia Beach headquarters.

When alerted to the neglect and cruelty documented today, the company replied: “We get [hermit crabs] from a reliable source. They’re not tortured; they’re not mistreated.” The spokesperson refused to comment on the dead hermit crab found inside his company’s store. Watch the recap footage below:

The demonstration was the culmination of a two summer-long campaign comprising four local billboards, an investigative video viewed by over 60,000 people revealing dead and dying hermit crabs inside Sunsations, protests at every Virginia Beach location, call-in days, and the distribution of thousands of postcards to tourists.

Hermit crabs are complex animals who thrive in large colonies in their natural habitat, the tropical seashore. But every single land hermit crab sold in souvenir shops like Sunsations has been caught from the wild, as these animals do not breed readily in captivity. At the boardwalk, hermit crabs are sold to tourists in tiny, barren cages and typically die in mere months—much sooner than their 30-year natural lifespan.

According to Plight of the Hermies founder Laura Lee Cascada, “Sunsations is a beloved family store—but it is also one of the largest sellers of wild hermit crabs on the East Coast. Its customers would be shocked to learn that these crabs are wild animals who are torn from their habitats to be sold in barren, crowded conditions that lead to their untimely deaths.”

You can add your name to the petition at HermitCrabFreedom.com.