Man raises stone crabs, sells them for more than king crabs
For Mr. Mai Tan Thanh, raising flat crabs to increase family income is secondary. What is more important is preserving this species which is facing the risk of extinction due to over-hunting for sale.
Talking about his flat crab farming, Mr. Thanh in Dong Ho village, An Hai commune, Ly Son district confided: "In recent years, when Ly Son became a tourist island, the number of people coming to the island has increased. With delicious meat quality that is not inferior to its counterparts living under the sea, flat crabs (also known as stone crabs) that live in areas with caves and rocky crevices along the shore on the island have become a specialty."
From being countless and not much noticed, flat crabs are now being hunted down for sale, with the current price reaching 700,000-800,000 VND/kg.
Mr. Thanh's flat crab farming area.
Even though it is as expensive as the "royal" crab, the emperor, it is not always possible to buy it when you have money.
Mr. Thanh is catching flat crabs to raise for sale.
Faced with the decreasing number, becoming rarer and at risk of extinction, about 5 years ago, Mr. Thanh came up with the idea of raising this specialty crab species.
Take advantage of the vacant land of about 60m2In his family's yard, Mr. Thanh invested more than 15 million VND to build walls, cover with nets, and transport rocks to create a place to raise crabs.
Because they cannot reproduce on their own, Mr. Thanh bought the fish from local people to catch and raise.
A large number of flat crabs are always maintained in the cage.
"The current price of the breed is about 350,000 VND/kg (from 13-15 animals/kg) and it takes 6-10 months to raise them before they can be sold. That does not include the cost of food, loss due to fighting each other to death... so the profit is not much. Therefore, my main purpose in raising this animal is to preserve it," Mr. Thanh expressed.
Although restaurants on the island and some neighboring provinces always call to order, Mr. Thanh only sells 1/3-1/2 of the total number of crabs raised in the cage, the rest is used to maintain the herd.
Flat crabs are now priced the same as their "royal" counterpart, the king crab.
"If we hunt like we have been, there will come a time when there will be no more baby crabs left. So my wish is to find a way to breed them, instead of finding them in the wild and raising them like I have been doing for a long time," Thanh confided.
It is known that in addition to Mr. Thanh, for decades Mr. Bui Van Hue (born 1975), in An Binh commune (Be island), in the same district, has also raised this crab species.
