you’re looking at a species that have
managed to survive for a half a billion
years they’ve figured out how to
harmonize with their environment in
order to last that long
this is actually an insane time for
overshoot as people come from all over
the world to see them particularly in
the Delaware Bay region where that’s
pretty much the epicenter of horseshoe
crab spawning in the United States but
the concentration that we have here is
larger than any other place in the world
the surveys that we do they’re done on
the same night they’re done in the same
way year after year we have a 1 meter
quadrat that’s Square putting it down
every 20 meters and we’re counting the
males and females that are within that
quadrant
they don’t just rush up on the beach
hey look it’s high tide lay a bunch of
eggs that doesn’t pay off the females
require sand that’s lubricated with
water to a certain degree so that they
can dig through it and they also need it
dry enough that they can create a cavity
under themselves into which they release
a batch of eggs so she’s going to lay
about a cluster of eggs that’s maybe
about the size of a golf ball will be
about 4 or 5,000 eggs in there and then
after she’s laid those you’ll see her
bow forward go down a little bit and do
it again and then she’ll do it again and
still do it again maybe four or five
times in one tide for about 20,000 eggs
for every female that you’ll see on a
spawning tide there are several males
she won’t come ashore to spawn unless
she has a male clipped onto her but
there are other males that are jumping
around because by doing things right
they can achieve some paternity during
spawning they sort of game the system
the pharmaceutical biomedical industry
uses a test that’s made from the blood
of the horseshoe crab to determine
whether there’s any kind of bacteria
that would cause an infection fever and
causes to die
anything that’s injected into our system
anything that comes in contact with our
blood that includes even the needle the
saline solution spinal fluids like
epidurals anything that comes in contact
with those systems the blood of
horseshoe crabs can be taken from the
crab with that causing 100% mortality in
fact the mortality is about 30% of the
bled crabs and those crabs have been
bled or released within 24 hours of
capture I feel this anticipation every
year when the horseshoe crabs are
starting to come ashore to spawn we’ve
got a lot of measures in place that are
already starting to bear fruit from the
declines that we had back in the 90s but
we still have a ways to go before we
feel that the population is healthy and
robust every year when I’m seeing
horseshoe crabs come up on the beach I’m
watching something that has played out
for millions and millions and millions
of years and I’m just in awe
managed to survive for a half a billion
years they’ve figured out how to
harmonize with their environment in
order to last that long
this is actually an insane time for
overshoot as people come from all over
the world to see them particularly in
the Delaware Bay region where that’s
pretty much the epicenter of horseshoe
crab spawning in the United States but
the concentration that we have here is
larger than any other place in the world
the surveys that we do they’re done on
the same night they’re done in the same
way year after year we have a 1 meter
quadrat that’s Square putting it down
every 20 meters and we’re counting the
males and females that are within that
quadrant
they don’t just rush up on the beach
hey look it’s high tide lay a bunch of
eggs that doesn’t pay off the females
require sand that’s lubricated with
water to a certain degree so that they
can dig through it and they also need it
dry enough that they can create a cavity
under themselves into which they release
a batch of eggs so she’s going to lay
about a cluster of eggs that’s maybe
about the size of a golf ball will be
about 4 or 5,000 eggs in there and then
after she’s laid those you’ll see her
bow forward go down a little bit and do
it again and then she’ll do it again and
still do it again maybe four or five
times in one tide for about 20,000 eggs
for every female that you’ll see on a
spawning tide there are several males
she won’t come ashore to spawn unless
she has a male clipped onto her but
there are other males that are jumping
around because by doing things right
they can achieve some paternity during
spawning they sort of game the system
the pharmaceutical biomedical industry
uses a test that’s made from the blood
of the horseshoe crab to determine
whether there’s any kind of bacteria
that would cause an infection fever and
causes to die
anything that’s injected into our system
anything that comes in contact with our
blood that includes even the needle the
saline solution spinal fluids like
epidurals anything that comes in contact
with those systems the blood of
horseshoe crabs can be taken from the
crab with that causing 100% mortality in
fact the mortality is about 30% of the
bled crabs and those crabs have been
bled or released within 24 hours of
capture I feel this anticipation every
year when the horseshoe crabs are
starting to come ashore to spawn we’ve
got a lot of measures in place that are
already starting to bear fruit from the
declines that we had back in the 90s but
we still have a ways to go before we
feel that the population is healthy and
robust every year when I’m seeing
horseshoe crabs come up on the beach I’m
watching something that has played out
for millions and millions and millions
of years and I’m just in awe
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