This has been bothering me for a few weeks.
We went to Ocean City, MD last month and spent a day crabbing with chicken legs and string. We caught enough crabs in a few hours to feed the 6 of us.
I mistakenly assumed that since the crabs live in the water I should transport them back to our condo in water, so I put enough water in the cooler to cover them. They were all pretty feisty during the few hours we were catching them and tossing them in the cooler.
However, a couple of hours later when we got back to the condo, 90% of them were dead.
I later learned that they should be transported on ice with a roughly
50 degree temp being the best.The thing I don't get is why did they die in the cooler in just a couple of hours? In all the time we were crabbing I never saw one crab "come up for air" so I assume that they can breath in water.
Did they simply use up all of the oxygen in the cooler water and basically drown?