Crabnapped

01/11/2025

Had a lovely day at Logan BookFest. Met some amazing people, handed out free hermit crab stickers and colouring competition pages and sold some books 📕 Thanks to everyone who came to my stall to see me.

27/09/2025

Meet the author of Crabnapped: A Land Hermit Crab Story!
Swing by their stall to grab a signed copy — paperback or hardcover — and get stuck into the fun with a crab-themed colouring competition. Winner scores a copy of the book!

Join Vanessa Pike-Russell at Logan BookFest

📣 Book your FREE tickets now - https://www.facebook.com/share/1GJY4Ah4pY/

27/09/2025

My Great Grandpapa Harry St. Vincent Beechey wrote a poem about our visit to the beach where I met my first Hermit crab 🐚

—————
The Young’n

I babysit in the soft warm sand.
She runs about on sturdy legs.
Perhaps she is sitting me—I do not run much anymore.

She calls to me. “Great-grand-papa!”
Each consonant crisp as a race-caller.
“Great-grand-papa. Come quick! See? What is it?”
Creaking, I answer her urgency, to where she squats
Her attention pointing out the tiny creature.

Once, before I was great—before I was grand
I would have answered her. A lesson. A lecture
On the hermit crab.
But now I am wiser. “What do you see?”
“He is carrying his house.”
“And then? Tell me!”
“He is little, and he is frightened.”
“But?”
“But he is brave. He has a bitey hand, and he clicks it.
“His eyes are little sparks.
“He is a baby monster but I am not afraid!
What is he?”

“Look long and remember, little one.” I say.
“THAT is what he is! “
By Harry St. Vincent Beechey
_________

He was my Great Grandmother’s second husband. An amazing man. So talented and an inspiration to all that knew him

Illustration from the book “Crabnapped: A land hermit crab story” by Anastasia Obrucicova and written by Vanessa Pike-Russell and Geoff Pike

You can buy it on Amazon

https://amzn.to/4d1BGqH

16/09/2025

I’ll be there selling signed copies of “Crabnapped: A land hermit crab story” for $20. I hope to see you there

BOOKED FOR FUN!!
LOGAN BOOKFEST IS BACK!

📅 Saturday 1st November
📍 Beenleigh Showgrounds
🕘 9am – 4pm
🎟️ FREE ENTRY

Books, bites and big-time fun for the whole fam!
We’re talking:
📚 Local author signings & readings
🎨 Kids' storytelling & creative chaos
🧩 A puzzling mystery to solve
📸 Time machine + enchanted photo booth
🛍️ Bookish markets
🍔 Food and drink available

Whether you’re raising a mini reader, love a good yarn, or just keen for a day out—this one’s for you. Come support local authors and creatives, and leave with a few new favourites.

📣 Book your FREE tickets now - https://www.facebook.com/share/1GJY4Ah4pY/

Proudly supported by City of Logan, Community Bank Logan and Helensvale Bendigo Bank, Rowan Holzberger MP, Rebel FM, Drews Sign-it and Officeworks.

04/09/2025

I’m about to adopt two more land hermit crabs. What names would you recommend for boys?

03/09/2025

For you, a hermit crab’s lifespan is measured in months. Your kid picks one out at a beach souvenir shop. Its shell is painted to resemble SpongeBob’s freckled face. Dutifully, you buy accessories. To the shoebox-sized tank, you add some sand, a plastic palm tree, a little dish of water with a sponge, and a sprinkling of food pellets. The crab proves an unsatisfying pet. It barely moves. It curls into its shell when you approach. One day, there is a smell.

Hermit crabs were meant for so much more. They are social creatures, who can live for decades in the wild—the hermit crabs for sale on the boardwalk were all plucked from beaches. A dedicated group of crab activists rescues crabs that are abandoned at the end of summer, spending thousands of dollars on spacious "crabitats" filled with enrichment activities like climbing walls and swings, as well as specialty food. One woman is even trying (and succeeding!) at breeding hermit crabs, with the hope that someday, we'll regard the humble crab as a pet akin to a dog, or even an exotic bird: a pet with a rich life, that takes time, resources, and dedication to care for.

Read more about America’s most misunderstood pet—and the humans are fighting to change their fate: https://slate.trib.al/D1Njz0H

16/08/2025

It’s well known that Hermit Crabs have to swap shells when they outgrow their old ones.

In certain circumstances - a chain of crabs will gather together, line up in size order, and then all at once swap shells as the larger in the line becomes vacant.

It is thought that this process is controlled through pheromones, which are chemical signals that communicate with members of the same species. Often excreted through urine, these pheromones tell nearby crabs that there might be a new shell on offer.

If you haven’t seen this incredible phenomenon, please do look it up, it’s banging - however this amazing collective behaviour isn't the norm. In a pre-plastic world hermit crabs would quite happily pootle around until they found suitable habitation. This is a long-winded job for the crabs and chemical signals remain incredibly important to the process, with often grim consequences.

Plastic buckets and bottles, washed up on beaches are potential death traps for hermit crabs.

A crab in search of a new shell might quite reasonably wander into a plastic container, but sadly, on finding it inappropriate would be unable to get a grip on its smooth sides and become trapped. Soon dying of dehydration, the deceased crab’s body releases another chemical beacon, telling hermit crabs that their shell is now vacant (on account of them being dead).

These unsuspecting hermit crabs, expecting a shell, and maybe a meal, now also topple into the plastic container and are themselves stuck.

On goes the cycle.

In the Journal of Hazardous Materials, Dr Alex Bond found that across two immensely remote islands, Cocos and Henderson, over 570,000 hermit crabs died unnecessarily due to plastic waste.

The pain of using less plastic doesn’t seem so bad now right?

15/08/2025

Looking forward to buying one of these hermit crabs in a bottle made of mini blocks sold at Kmart. So cute!!!

https://www.kmart.com.au/product/mini-blocks-animal-series-assorted-43542628/

02/08/2025

Wish I was there!

23/07/2025

Article from SBS about land hermit crab harvesting and export
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australias-hermit-crabs-are-in-demand-but-some-want-the-trade-banned/7fx0yvnsq

Article from ABC Australia about Merv Cooper and his exporting license
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-17/crazy-crabs-trader-denies-exploiting-australian-hermit-crabs/105537982

A West Australian businessman licensed to collect and sell thousands of hermit crabs as pets rejects criticism he is a threat to the crustacean's population.

22/07/2025

I’m working on publishing a colouring book with my illustrator Anastasia Obrucicova. This is the page in “Crabnapped: A land hermit crab story” where the two hermit crabs Rocky and Crusty are kidnapped off a beach in Broome, Western Australia.

Please feel free to download it and colour it. I’ll be publishing the colouring book this year. If you do colour it please share it in the comments below.

Crabnapped: A land hermit crab story can be purchased on Amazon Australia https://amzn.to/4d1BGqH

Hardcovers are available from Amazon UK https://amzn.eu/d/04GvAaAK

USA https://amzn.to/4dojKq4