Author: Lucy Sherriff / Source: Atlas Obscura
The minuscule Caribbean island of Providencia, which is part of Colombia, is almost untouched by development, rarely visited by tourists, and inhabited by around 6,000 people. But once a year, the Colombian military descends upon the luminous island, with its crystalline water and swaying palm trees.
The military’s task is to protect an army of black crabs—a species endemic to the island—during their brief migration period.This particular species, known as Gercarcinus ruricola, typically lives on land. But they head to the sea annually for breeding purposes. The crabs, which have a black shell with red legs and yellow markings, lay their eggs near the sea, incubate them for around two weeks, and then enter the ocean for the larvae to hatch. Once they’ve hatched, the larvae develop in the sea for almost three weeks, and those that survive make their way back to shore to live inland in the dry forests, beneath logs and rocks, or underground.
The crabs’ migration has recently become a well-known phenomenon within Colombia, although they have been around since before islanders even settled in Providencia. But the crabs represent more than just a photo opportunity. For hundreds of years, black land crab has been a traditional delicacy for the islanders. “The black crab means a lot for our people,” explains Winston Arenas Jay, a 38-year-old tour guide who grew up in Providencia. “They are part of who we are, part of our identity, part of our tradition, our culture.”
He says that every child growing up on the island remembers a first encounter with the crabs. “If your parents want you to do something and you don’t, they’ll say ‘the crabs will get you’, and then you’ll obey [them] immediately,” he says. “But pretty soon you understand they’re not aggressive and you start to admire them.” Jay recalls learning how to catch the crabs as a child with his hands without getting hurt, and having to remove them from his home by the bucketful. “There are just millions and millions of newborn crabs everywhere,” he adds. “They can be as small as a mosquito.”
People trap the crustaceans at night, and by hand, when they come out in search of food (usually fruits, mushrooms and other organic matter from the forests). Hunters go into the forests with lanterns, catch the crabs alive, then keep them in boxes with high sides to stop them making a getaway.
The crabs are killed the next day, mostly by women working with small knives and handmade tools in their homes. The crustaceans are boiled, and both their shells and meat are removed. They’re then sold or kept for future meals. “We call this ‘picking’—when you separate the useful part of the crab from the unuseful part, which is a very difficult job,” Jay says. “It’s a very popular food on the island, we love to eat black crab.” Traditionally, the crabs are boiled or stewed. They’re served either with rice in a local dish called rondón, in empanadas, or in a popular soup that’s cooked with herbs, coconut milk, garlic, yams and dumplings.
Hunting crabs used to be a largely sustainable practice, due to the small numbers of residents living in Providencia. However, in recent years, tourism has increased exponentially. In 2008, the number of tourists, both domestic and international, to the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina—a third, unpopulated island—rose to 340,333 people. In 2017, the number of visitors numbered 960,846.
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