10/25/12

ASMFC Horseshoe Crab Board Sets Annual Specifications in Adaptive Multi-Species Management

Delaware Region: The Commission’s Horseshoe Crab Management Board has approved the harvest specifications for horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay origin. Under the Adaptive Resource Management (ARM) Framework, the Board set a harvest limit of 500,000 Delaware Bay male horseshoe crabs and zero female horseshoe crabs for the 2013 season. download the pdf.

09/12/12

Coastal Studies to Shore up Action

Delaware: Residents in Delaware Bay communities from Broadkill Beach north to Kitts Hummock are about to find out what the long-term plans are to save their part of the coastline from sea-level rise.  download the pdf.

09/11/12

New Fossil Discovery Offers Clues to Evolutionary Change of Horseshoe Crab Legs

Britain: A new fossil discovery in Britain captures a previously unseen stage in the evolution of these ancient arthropods—the transformation of two-branched legs into nearly identical but separately attached limbs, one of which was destined to disappear. download the pdf.

09/04/12

Stunning Discovery: World’s Longest Fossilized ‘Death Track’

Germany: According to an international team of paleontologists, a 9.7-meter-long mortichnia of a horseshoe crab unearthed at a famous fossil locality in Germany is the longest complete fossilized death track ever found. download the pdf.

09/01/12

Horseshoe Crab Artificial Reef Sculpture Shatters During Installation at Jersey Shore

New Jersey: The barge landed on top of the sunken sculpture, further shattering it, according to a report in Ocean City Patch, an online news site. download the pdf.

07/22/12

Massive Horseshoe Crab Sculpture to Become Artificial Reef

New Jersey: The precious cargo perched atop a 50-foot-longbarge isn’t a shiny white yacht or cabin cruiser — it’s a 48-foot-long, 25,000-pound concrete horseshoe crab. The sculpture dwarfs the vessels, lurking like some sea monster in a Japanese horror film. And the fact that it’s made out of concrete and is completely unseaworthy, is precisely what makes it so precious. download the pdf.

06/08/12

Horseshoe Crab and Whelk Processors & Dealers Contribute $10,000 to Horseshoe Crab Trawl Survey

Virginia: Members of the horseshoe crab and whelk industry from the Chesapeake Bay Packing, LLC and Bernie’s Conchs, LLC, have collectively pledged $10,000 to support the Horseshoe Crab Trawl Survey for 2012. download the pdf.

03/28/12

Medical Testing Firm Plans to Increase Business Here

Virginia: A company whose product is used to test pharmaceuticals will be expanding with the recent purchase of the building it is renting here — the former Port of Cape Charles Sustainable Technologies Industrial Park structure. download the pdf.

03/23/12

A Shorebird, a Crab and a Call to Action

Delaware Bay: The red knot has begun its 9,300-mile migration from its wintering areas in thePatagonia and Tierra del Fuego regions of Argentina to its mating grounds in the Canadian Arctic. Like clockwork, the shorebird makes a crucial two-week stop each May in Delaware Bay; it is estimated that nearly 90 percent of the entire red knot population of can be found there on a single May day.The bird’s annual arrival coincides with horseshoe crab spawning. Crab eggs are essential to the redknot, which consumes enough to double its body weight and gain the strength to complete the nonstop last leg of the journey north. download the pdf.

02/13/12

ASMFC Horseshoe Crab Board Approves Addendum VII

Virginia: The Commission’s Horseshoe Crab Management Boad has approved Addendum VII to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan. The Addendum implements the Adaptive Resource Management (ARM) Framework, which incorporates both shorebird and horseshoe crab abundance levels to set optimized horseshoe crab harvest levels for the Delaware Bay area. download the pdf.

12/19/12

Kinmen-bred Horseshoe Crabs to be Released in Southwestern

Taiwan: Thousands of horseshoe crabs bred in offshore Kinmen County will be released next April in southwestern Taiwan, where the species has been seriously depleted, officials said Wednesday. Download the pdf.

12/04/12

Group Urges End to Animal Testing

Taiwan: Showing video clips of rabbits in tiny boxes and rows of horseshoe crabs having their blood drawn, representatives from an animal welfare group and legislators yesterday urged the government to amend regulations to reduce unnecessary animal testing for drug production. download the pdf.

07/12/12

Stranded Horseshoe Crabs Helped by a Norwegian Youth

Norway: A few weeks ago, Kristian Fjeld and his grandmother Gry Handberg, traveled from Elverum, Norway, for the sole purpose of seeing horseshoe crabs spawn on Pickering Beach, Delaware. However, the journey started two years ago, when Kristian became interested in living fossils and discovered the horseshoe crab. Working with the Ecological Research & Development Group (ERDG) an international nonprofit organization headquartered in Delaware, with a mission to protect and conserve the world’s four horseshoe crab species, Kristian deepened his interest and desire to see this remarkable mariner. This interest, nurtured by his grandmother Gry, ultimately lead to the decision to visit the shores where this creature spawns in numbers not seen anywhere else in the world, the Delaware Bay. During Kristian’s visit he helped hundreds of stranded horseshoe crabs as part of ERDG’s Just flip ’em!™ program, and as a result, may hold Norway’s record for having rescued the most stranded horseshoe crabs. This fall, Kristian will start junior high school in Elverum.  He has already decided what he will study in the future, marine biology. The attached article from the local Elverum newspaper Ostlendingen, although in Norwegian, is in celebration of this remarkable young man, his loving grandmother, and a journey that took them halfway across the world. The picture speak for themselves. download the pdf.

07/03/12

Orgy? Tough Life For Blue-blooded Horseshoe Crab

Delaware Bay: This was no Saturday night Cinemax movie set – nor, for that matter, some kind of weird Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers-meets-Caligula mash-up. This was horseshoe crab mating season, and the same scene has been unfolding – as it did many evenings in May and June – in Delaware Bay for likely as long as the bay has existed in its present form, perhaps the last 5,000 years or so. download the pdf.

06/15/12

Young Voices, Horseshoe Crabs & the Arts

New Jersey: ERDG’s Young Voices, Horseshoe Crabs & the Arts exhibition will be on display Saturday, June 16th – 23rd at the Perkins Center for the Arts, in Collingswood, NJ. Following the Perkins showing, the artwork will travel to the Cape May Nature Center in Cape May, NJ.

06/02/12

Hundreds Pray for Horseshoe Crabs

Delaware: More than 250 Buddhists recently gathered on a windy Slaughter Beach to bless horseshoe crabs in the midst of crab-mating season in the Delaware Bay. download the pdf.

06/02/12

250 Buddhist From Five States and Three Cultures Meet on Slaughter Beach, Delaware

Delaware: Every spring, these ancient animals come ashore to spawn and are often turned over on their backs by the surf and unable to upright themselves, and subsequently die. Glenn Gauvry, founder of ERDG aka Sangjie Tieba Rinpoche, led over 250 Buddhist from dharma centers and temples in New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia as well as local non-Buddhist in a ceremony, on Slaughter Beach, Delaware, to bless these living beings and dedicate the merit of their actions to all living beings who are suffering throughout the world. After the ceremony, participants walked the shoreline to help those horseshoe crabs that were stranded on the shore, return to their marine habitat. http://www.dharmadhatu-center.org/fourth-annual-horseshoe/

04/20/12

Horseshoe Crab Biography of a Survivor

USA: In his new book Horseshoe Crab: Biography of a Survivor, acclaimed science writer Anthony D. Fredericks travels from the Delaware Bay to the Florida Pan handle on a quest through the natural history and science behind one of nature’s oldest  and oddest survivors. He explores horseshoe crabs’ unique biology and sex life, explains their importance to medical science  and to migratory shorebirds, and introduces readers to the people who are working to study and protect them. Horseshoe Crab includes a foreword by Glenn Gauvry, founder of the horseshoe crab preservation organization ERDG, who says, http://www.rukapress.com/books/horseshoe-crab

04/16/12

Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms

Delaware: Richard Fortey’s “Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms” begins, as all serious books of science should,at an orgy. Specifically, the author is observing the nighttime mating ritual of thousands of clacking horseshoe crabs in spring along the Delaware coast. “I am there,” he writes, “with my notebook and a fluttering heart.” download the pdf.