Cancún, Mexico — The spawning season for the blue crab in Cancún has commenced with the registration of 135 specimens crossing from the mangroves to the coast during the first event organized by the Benito Juárez Directorate of Ecology. This figure, lower than the more than 260 crabs counted on the same date in 2024, reflects a decrease attributed mainly to the lack of rainfall in the preceding days, a key factor for the species' movement.
The director of the department, Fernando Haro Salinas, explained that rainfall is essential to flood the burrows in the mangrove, stimulating the migration of the crabs to the sea. With the rains recorded this week, a significant rebound is expected for the second spawning event, scheduled for October 5, 6, and 7, with the possibility of reaching numbers close to those of last year, when more than 430 female crabs were counted crossing.
Haro Salinas emphasized that the ideal conditions for spawning include the presence of the full moon and rains, which act as signals for the blue crabs and sesarma crabs, the two terrestrial species that inhabit the Cancún mangrove, to emerge and release between 300,000 and 700,000 eggs into the ocean.
To protect this natural phenomenon, 65 volunteers from agencies such as Semarnat, Zofemat, Conanp, and the State Government were deployed to guard the crabs during their journey to the coast.
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