REED’S BEACH – Twenty-seven students from the Middle Township Middle School donned headlamps to work in cooperation with the American Littoral Society to tag and take population surveys of horseshoe crabs on a Delaware Bay beach.
The students are all members of the school’s STEM (Science, Technology Engineering, and Math) and GIS clubs, both science and engineering-based clubs, according to a release.
The young scientists met with Quinn Whitesall, a habitat preservation specialist with the Littoral Society, on South Reed’s Beach in Middle Township.
Whitesall provided information to the students about horseshoe crab anatomy, habitat, reproduction, use for pharmaceutical purity, and ecological importance.
The students were taught how to properly handle the creatures, how to drill a hole in their carapace, and the proper placement of tags. Students then documented missing crab parts, the location of attached slipper shells, and the sex of the crabs.
During the process, the students also had the opportunity to touch the horseshoe crabs light blue blood and greenish-gray eggs. Over the past four years, the STEM club has tagged approximately 400 horseshoe crabs during this dusk-to-night activity.
