This is why you are seeing more horseshoe crabs stranded on the beach than in previous years. Most do not wash up on the beach, but come ashore to spawn and the waves turn them over stranding them on the beach making them vulnerable to predators. (shore birds, raccoons etc.)

Horseshoe crabs lay their eggs between the high and low tide marks. This helps to keep the eggs moist until they hatch. The shore birds you see feasting on the beach are most likely eating the eggs although shorebirds will sometimes be seen feasting on the overturned horseshoe crabs too.

Turning over horseshoe crabs and helping them back into the water, while in the big picture won’t make much of a difference, to the individual horseshoe crab it could mean the difference between life and death. While some of them would probably be able right themselves and get back to the water when the tide comes in, many could die from dehydration and predators before that happens. If it makes you feel better, by all means help them. I always try to help an animal in distress as long as it’s safe and feasible.

This year the horseshoe crab population has shown signs of improved numbers and the red knots that depend on their eggs to give them the energy to complete their journey to their breading grounds in the Artic are getting enought eggs to bring them up to optimum weight.

While this is a very good sign that things are turning around, the red knot population is still critically low and more work has to be done to ensure that the red knot and horseshoe crab population makes a full recovery to previous over harvesting days.

The Johor Straits Singapore is one of the homes of the Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda species of horseshoe crabs that inhabit that part of the world.

Carcinoscorpius Rotundicauda are horseshoe crabs that can be found in the indo/west pacific waters and are getting dangerously close to extinction.

The part that makes me mad is that fishermen are using mono-filament nets on these shores and are leaving them unmanned.  The horseshoe crabs and other wildlife get caught in the nets and when the tide goes out are stranded on land where the heat quickly kills them.

The part that gives me hope is that this article tells how one person spent over 5 hours fighting time and the heat of the day cutting the nets away and releasing the horseshoe crabs so that they could get back into the water in order to survive.

I commend this individual and my only hope is that more people take an active role in helping wild life and that there be enacted laws to prevent fishermen from abandoning their nets and leaving the fish and animals entrapped in them to die because of their neglect.

Scientist capture and tag many red knots and other shore birds to  help keep an eye on how well the birds are doing. The last decade has been challenging to these birds due to the reduction of the horseshoe crab population along the New Jersey beaches.

The preliminary results coming in seem to indicate that the horseshoe crab population is rebounding from the over harvesting and the red knots are getting enough horseshoe crab eggs to fatten up for their continued journey to their breeding grounds.

Hopefully this will bring about a rebound of the reclining population of red knots seen over the last decade and prevent the possiblility of their extinctinon.

You can see a short video of the scientists capturing the examining the shorebirds at nj.com.

This is a great way for students to learn about how one seemingly unimportant species can play an important role in the ecological web and also their importance to even our own lives.

They also learn about how to protect our environment and to get some hands on experience in how it feels to take an active role in preserving our planet.

You can read more about this program in Maryland from http://burning-daylight.blogspot.com.

This program and others like it should be instigated and maybe even made mandatory in schools nation wide.