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3D Printers To Save Hermit Crabs
Shareable writes "Makerbot just launched Project Shellter, which will leverage the Makerbot community's network of 5,000 3D printers to make shells for hermit crabs — which face a species-threatening, man-made shell shortage (they inhabit abandoned shells)."
Perhaps it could be named "Project bash"?
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Is there any evidence that this is a real problem, as opposed to an art project, PR stunt, or whatever?
Hermit crabs will live in anything they can get their ass into and fully hide under. I've seen them "wear" bottle tops and in one case a plastic cup.
FTFA:
With a shell shortage, hermit crabs around the world are being forced to stick their butts into bottles, shotgun shells, and anything else they can find.
I keep tellin' them pesky neighborhood ranch association folks that it ain't no trash in my front yard. That there's a Hermit Crab Sanctuary.
And them crabs keeps their kids off my lawn.
At least I think there's still a lawn down there below the trash.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
This is true I had a pet hermit crab when I was younger and we couldn't find a shell big enough for it so I put one of my plastic toys in the cage with it and it took up residence in it the same day. Although, I have to admit that unless these crabs are in the wild it doesn't really matter because hermit crabs do not require a shell to survive it is only used for pretection from preditors. My hermit crab went without a shell for quite a while before I put a toy in the tank with it.
But this probably takes the cake.
I have to hope this is just a (lame) attempt at advertising, and not that the dimwits involved in this actually believe that its better for the hermit crabs to ship plastic around the world, manufacture it into the spools the MakerBot uses, then use all that electricity to fabricate a plastic shell, and then tossing *plastic* into the ocean is actually going to help hermit crabs.
You know, hermit crabs -- an animal of which there are billions in the ocean. (I'm sure a few thousand suckers making these will really help the species!)
You know, an animal that will live in ANY scavanged hollow-enough item.
And if said dimwits actually believe they're helping anything, it just goes to show the aversion to reason and science isn't limited to the radical right.
...Why not Zoidberg?
(especially since the episode where Zoidberg finds a shell has some of the best quick gags in the series.)
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Mass production doesn't allow for the creative preferences of the crab population. By establishing a reference model shell standard as a starting point, all manner of customization can then be offered as upgrades - multiple rooms, fancy foyers, etc. Although perhaps not every crab should look for the upscale options, with some clever financing alternatives it should be possible to create an open ended boom in the marketplace and enable crabs of all means to look forward to ever rising valuations.
Plastic is an organic compound and will break down a lot faster than the mineral structure of "natural" seashells.
What we consider to be unpleasant but non-toxic waste does not necessarily have to be bad for the sea-life.
For example a car-wreck dumped into the ocean can make a great substitute for coral reefs.
This was tried in 2004 http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/13/demaray.php
TFA goes into detail on the reasons and shows actual experiments with prototypes.