(Photo: Kristy Faulker/Mercury)
Tens of millions of Christmas Island Red Crabs (Gecarcoidea natalis) migrate across Christmas Island in the south Pacific Ocean. Although they live in the forests on the island, they must go to the sea to breed. To help them cross safely, the people of Christmas Island take a variety of precautions, such as closing roads occasionally. In recent years, they've really stepped up their game by building underpasses and bridges to guide the crabs and move them safely along. The Daily Telegraph reports:
More than 20 kilometres of plastic barriers are in place to direct the crabs away from the island’s roads and into 31 crab underpasses - as will as a five metre-high crab bridge crossing one of the areas busiest roads, which has apparently become something of a tourist attraction in its own right.
These pathways also make it easier to see the crabs in large numbers, so they've become popular tourist attractions:
“Sydney can have its Harbour Bridge and San Francisco its Golden Gate Bridge," says Linda Cash of the Christmas Island Tourism Association, "but it’s our crab bridge which is currently wooing tourists from all over the globe.”