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Greetings fellow Horseshoe Crab monitors & taggers, Here is a re-cap from the final Horseshoe Crab monitoring & tagging event for the season on Sunday, June 7, 2009 I am still in the process of gathering and dealing with the data, but so far this is the information I have in brief: 1) Sandy Hook/Plum Island: About ten volunteers counted 195 horseshoe crabs. Due to the high tide they were only able to monitor 500ft of Plum Island on Sandy Hook. They tagged 30 crabs, and exhausted all the tags. They counted mostly males and coupled females. Not many nesting females or large clusters though. 2) Atlantic Highlands: About eight volunteers were able to monitor 600 feet of beach near the mouth of Many Mind Creek. They counted 75 HSC, including 2 dead crabs, and 1 large cluster of one female & six males. About 35 crabs were tagged and all tags were also exhausted. Otherwise, most of the crabs counted were single males and 11 couples. 3) Leonardo Beach/Middletown: About 40 Horseshoe crabs were counted with about half tagged. 4) Conaskonck Point/ Union Beach: Volunteers worked about 30 ft of beach to the right of the access site. There were too many fishermen and debris at the other end. Volunteers counted 29 HSC and tagged 18. Of note: all of the HSC would come up, break the surface and then immediately turn around and go back into the bay. All the tags were exhausted. 5) Cliffwood Beach: Volunteers counted 469 Horseshoe crabs!!! Out of this number, 162 were couples, and 92 were females. The remainder of crabs found were single males. No dead crabs were located. Needless to say, all the tags were exhausted. It seems that early June was the height of spawning activity for Horseshoe Crabs in this part of the bay in 2009. Also, it appears as of this year that Cliffwood Beach & Plum Island at Sandy Hook were the hot spots for HSC spawning activity in this part of the bay, very interesting information. It is also poignant to note the dearth of females identified at all monitoring sites. At this time, let me express my gratitude and appreciation for everyone involved in the project for the last few months. Everyone did a fabulous job. I am greatly indebted to your time, energy, and assistance in this project. We now have a slightly better idea of Horseshoe crab activity in Raritan Bay & Sandy Hook Bay thanks to all of you. Your time is much appreciated in the name of science!! Is it too early to ask you to mark your calendars now for the next Horseshoe Crab monitoring event in 2010? We will start up again in May 2010. Most likely we will start the HSC monitoring & tagging season with a training event again. I hope to see all of you for a second time next year. Thanks & fair winds, Joe Reynolds Co-chair Bayshore Regional Watershed Council www.bayshorewatershed.org | ||||||||
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