The man who raises rock crabs sells them for more than the king's crab.
For Mr. Mai Tan Thanh, raising flat crabs to increase his family's income is secondary; the more important thing is to conserve this species, which is facing extinction due to overhunting for commercial purposes.
Speaking about his flat crab farming, Mr. Thanh from Dong Ho village, An Hai commune, Ly Son district, shared: "In recent years, as Ly Son has become a tourist island, the number of people coming to the island has increased significantly. With meat quality no less delicious than its counterparts living in the sea, the flat crab (also known as rock crab), which lives in rocky crevices along the island's shoreline, has become a local specialty."
From being abundant and largely unnoticed, flat crabs are now being relentlessly hunted for sale, with current prices reaching 700,000-800,000 VND/kg.
This is the area where Mr. Thanh raises flat crabs.
Even though it's as expensive as the "king's crab" (Huynh De crab), you can't always buy it even if you have the money.
Mr. Thanh is raising flat crabs to sell.
Faced with their dwindling numbers, increasing rarity, and the risk of extinction, about five years ago, Mr. Thanh came up with the idea of raising this specialty crab species.
Utilize the vacant land area of approximately 60m².2Within his family's property, Mr. Thanh invested over 15 million VND to build walls, enclose areas with netting, and transport stones to create a living space for raising crabs.
Since he is unable to breed them himself, Mr. Thanh buys the chicks from local people who catch them to raise.
A large number of flat crabs are always maintained in the breeding enclosure.
"The price of piglets is currently around 350,000 VND/kg (13-15 piglets/kg), and it takes 6-10 months to raise them before they can be sold. That's not including feed costs, losses due to fighting and death... so the profit isn't much. Therefore, my main purpose in raising this animal is conservation," Thanh explained.
Although restaurants on the island and even in some neighboring provinces and cities constantly call to place orders, Mr. Thanh only sells 1/3 to 1/2 of the total number of crabs he raises in his cages, keeping the rest to maintain the stock.
Flat crabs are now priced the same as their "royal" counterpart, the king crab.
"If we continue hunting them like this, eventually even the baby crabs will be gone. Therefore, my wish is to find a way to breed them and produce offspring, rather than just catching them from the wild and releasing them into captivity as we've been doing," Thanh confided.
It is known that besides Mr. Thanh, for decades Mr. Bui Van Hue (born in 1975), from An Binh commune (Be Island), in the same district, has also been raising this type of crab.
