Just a quick email to express my gratitude and appreciation for all those of you who were able to spend a few hours last Saturday night to monitor and tag Horseshoe crabs along the tidal waters of Sandy Hook Bay and Raritan Bay in Monmouth County. We had a great turnout of people!

I am still in the process of gathering and dealing with the  data from all five monitoring sites, but so far this is the information I have in brief:

1)        Sandy Hook/Plum Island: Due to the high tide, they were only able to monitor 500ft of beach. They counted 74 horseshoe crabs and tagged (at another beach) 48!!! Two students from MAST also came out and collected water quality data (temp, salinity, DO and pH).

2)        Atlantic Highlands: 12 volunteers were able to monitor 600 feet of beach. They tagged 24 males and counted 54 Horseshoe crabs near the mouth of Many Mind Creek. Out of that number, there were 13 mating pairs and one cluster of 3 males trying to pair with one female.

3)        Cliffwood Beach: They counted 22 clusters of horseshoe crabs.  Three clusters consisted of 2 males and 1 female; the remaining 19 were male/female pairs.  Males = 25.  Females = 22. They counted 13 solitary crabs which were all males.  From that population they tagged 9 crabs who ranged in size from 15 1/2 cm (150 mm)to 21 cm (210 mm).  Males = 13. They also counted 1 dead male and 2 dead females. Including dead crabs, they counted 39 males, 24 females, 63 total.

Considering that the peak of HSC spawning season does not really arrive until the end of May, this was a very good first gathering!!!

Please mark you calendars now for the next Horseshoe Crab monitoring event. It will take place on Sunday, May 24th, at 8:00pm.

Thanks & fair winds,
Joe Reynolds
Co-chair
Bayshore Watershed Council

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