Greetings fellow Horseshoe Crab folks,

Despite the hit and miss lightning bolts in the bay last Friday evening, out first Horseshoe Crab monitoring & tagging event for 2010 was successful!! Even though we had to reduce the activities a bit to accommodate the stormy weather,  we were all able to spend some time on the beach to look for crabs, and the best part was that all sites found crab activity.

Once again Cliffwood Beach came in as a top winner with a total of 59 crabs!!!! And Leonardo was second with 15 crabs!! Good job to all and thanks for your time, effort, and dedication.

Please mark your calendars now for the next Horseshoe Crab monitoring & tagging event. It will take place on Thursday, May 26th at 8pm. We will need many people to help out on this date as crab mating activity is expected to increase by then!

Below are the official results from last Friday's (5/14/10)HSC monitoring event from 8:30pm to approx 9pm:

Sandy Hook/Plum Island:

Total of 4 horseshoe crabs - 1 male, 1 female, and 1 pair (male & female).  

Atlantic Highlands/Mouth of Many Mind Creek:

Total of 7 horseshoe crabs - 2 males, 1 female, 1 pair (male & female) and two dead crabs (1 male & 1 female).

Middletown Township/Leonardo Public Beach

Total of 15 crabs - Several of these crabs included mating pairs.

Union Beach/ Conaskonck Point

Total of 6 horseshoe crabs - 5 males, 1 female, which included one pair.  

Aberdeen Township/Cliffwood Beach

Total of 59 crabs - 20 females, 39 males, 38 clusters with the largest cluster containing 4 males to one female. 1 dead male crab.  

None of the beach captains reported seeing any crabs with tags on their shell from last year's event. Yet, the Cliffwood Beach people did report finding one crab that had a 3/8" diameter hole in its shell where a tag would have been inserted, but it was on the opposite side, on the right rear of the front shell.  At first they thought the hole came from last year's tagging and the tag was lost, but someone stated that the hole was on the wrong side for that to be a possibility.

Thanks to the new Beach Captains (Christine Bell & Marissa Weber) for their excellent help! Much obliged to everyone for their help & time!! I am excited and look forward to finding out the results for our next event on Thursday, May 27th.

Thanks & Fair winds,

Joe Reynolds

Co-Chair

Bayshore Regional Watershed Council

 print