True, but he assumes that anthropologists don't read newspapers.

Perhaps he means the anthropologists who are there after the newspapers have long turned to digital compost.

It kind of bother me, I mean can't he find another way to distract himself without "damaging" his environment ?

What, are you worried the hermit crabs are now going to set up some sort of repressive caste system based on their shell numbers?

You never know ;-), but the main problem I have with this is that when camping or when you have some sort of outdoor activity there is one precept : "Leave no trace behind". More details : http://wikitravel.org/en/Leave-no-trace_camping

I don't think he has done much damage to these crabs, it's insignificant, but he's ruining the beauty that nature has to offer him. He's also ruining it for others and that's more annoying.

I'm sure he was pleased to discover this untouched place, he's gesture in my opinion is selfish because he is depriving others from the experience he had, he's even saying at some point :

I thought I was watching a large graceful bird in flight, like a red-tailed hawk [...] I was watching a large manta ray, spotted and absolutely beautiful.

Now I'm not sure this mantra would have seem so beautiful to him if someone had written his name on it for example.

Agreed the Sharpie might disapear in a few days, I'm more concerned about the behaviour : he was bored so he wrote on crabs.

It's hard for me to tell what exactly you're concerned about. He didn't injure or probably even bother the crabs. The Sharpie really will disappear within a few days, so even if some future nature-lover stumbles upon the island later, his experience won't be "ruined" by numbered crabs (I would find it charming if I found such a thing!) So why are you concerned at all?

I'm concerned by the fact that he allows himself to go to such a place without applying the precept "Leave no trace". In my opinion if you want to preserve wild areas like this one, it is very important to respect it no matter what.

You would find it charming but I would find it sad. We don't know who else might visit this area and by what frequency, just by respect for other people who may not be pleased by such a gesture and because he doesn't own the place he shouln'd have done that. It really seems just like a basic outdoor camping rule to me.

> I'm concerned by the fact that he allows himself to go to such a place without applying the precept "Leave no trace".

You can't "leave no trace". The animals that noticed you behave differently now. Your footprints diverted an insect. (And, if you were riding a horse, the water that pooled in the hoof prints kept a Texas Ranger alive.) Your "waste" poisoned one thing and provided nutrients to another.

You can argue that these things don't count, but the line isn't as bright as your aesthetic revulsion requires.

I can't speak for cake, but I suspect it's as much an aesthetic thing as anything. Example from art: if you were insistent on viewing the Mona Lisa from a cubist aesthetic, it would be a crummy painting. It's not a moral assertion as such, though.

I agree. "Leave no trace behind" is like the one and only commandment people reiterate out here(in California). But he's from Arizona, so might not fully understand what it means.

I wonder if the crabs would rather be temporarily numbered or permanently eaten?