One of my younger cousins brought a pet hermit crab back from the Wildwood boardwalk over the 4th of July weekend, its shell painted a pretty shade of pink and its cage promising luxury accommodations at the “Hermit Crab Hotel.”

But there’s no such thing as a domestic hermit crab. They won’t breed in captivity; every hermit crab held prisoner on the Wildwoods boardwalk has been plucked from the wild and forced to live in conditions that will kill them sooner rather than later.

It’s not really my cousin’s fault. Hermit crabs – their shells made pretty with toxic paint – are a kind of default gift here on the shore. Like fudge.

Indeed, one of the biggest hermit crab wholesalers in the world can be found right here in South Jersey. Their website has little information other than the fact that you can buy these wondrous animals in bulk, and on the cheap.

But hermit crabs are incredibly difficult animals to keep alive.

They require specific conditions to thrive. The air must be properly humid, so they won’t dry up or die from the heat. They need a deep pit of sand – at least six inches– to hide inside when they molt. They need water free of chlorine and other additives common in our tap water. Additives mean death, often slow. They need at least 20 shells on hand at any time to change into as they grow. And they need at least 20 gallons of space.

Hermit crabs are not dim-witted creatures that lug their bodies lazily about the earth as they do in a typical gift shop setup. They are agile, intelligent creatures with complex social structures. If you want to have a hermit crab as a pet, it’s best to have more than one.

I write this with an ache in my heart. The idea that these animals – perfectly adapted to their environments in the ocean and on shorelines – are shipped across the country only to die miserably in the hands of a toddler is noxious.

I guess I don’t have a lot more to say about this! It’s still early morning here at the Herald office. My coffee has been too hot to drink for what seems like an hour, and my copy of Pikmin 4 is waiting at home for me.

Every day is a treasure. Unless you’re a hermit crab living in miserable squalor at the back of a vacation rental. Do the good thing – leave the crabs on the beach!