The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is seeking volunteers to help attach census tags to horseshoe crabs as the crabs come up out of the water to spawn at Calf Pasture Beach this spring. It’s all part of a census of horseshoe crabs in Long Island Sound, being led by Dr. Jennifer Mattei of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield. The Maritime Aquarium is assisting with the census and tagging.
Dr. Mattei’s census is establishing a baseline crab population and will reveal horseshoe crab migrations and any changes in numbers or behaviors. The data is needed because horseshoe crab eggs are an important food source for migrating shorebirds. If the horseshoe crab population declined, that could mean fewer birds on our coastline.
Horseshoe crabs come up onto beaches on the nights of the spring full and new moons. That’s a tagging bonanza time for researchers, so extra volunteers are needed to help.
To participate, new volunteers must attend one of two training sessions at the Aquarium: at 7 p.m. on either Wed., May 6 or Sun., May 10. They’ll learn about the natural history of horseshoe crabs, what has been learned so far from the census work, and how to harmlessly tag horseshoe crabs. Volunteers should be in 10th grade or older. Younger children can assist if working with a parent, teacher or guardian. (If you’ve helped tag crabs before, you don’t have to attend the trainings.)
Volunteers also must be able to be up before dawn and/or out after midnight for the crab-tagging sessions at Calf Pasture Beach in May, June and early July.
“This is the perfect ‘citizen scientist’ activity – one that gets enthusiastic volunteers involved in real marine science, while also helping us to collect more data than would be possible by a single researcher,” said Aquarium spokesman Dave Sigworth. “The tagging work is an especially great experience for teen-agers curious about a career in marine biology. Plus, it’s just fun.”
To sign up or for more details about the trainings and taggings, call The Maritime Aquarium at (203) 852-0700, ext. 2304, or e-mail jschnierlein@maritimeaquarium.org">jschnierlein@maritimeaquarium.org.