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Banner file photo
Horseshoe crabs could be on the decline on Cape Cod. |
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Horseshoe crabs in the spotlight
Banner Daily Update Sun. Mar. 30
By Kaimi Rose Lum
BANNER STAFF
WELLFLEET — The horseshoe crab, facing a decline in population that has scientists worried about its future, needs as many allies as it can get. Meet a band of them next Saturday when the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary holds an all-day Horseshoe Crab Conference to update the public on critical research and talk about some pressing conservation issues surrounding this unique and fascinating creature.
The free conference begins at 9 a.m. with refreshments and opening remarks by Bob Prescott, sanctuary director, and Brenda Boleyn, chair of the Committee for the Conservation of Horseshoe Crabs.
Dan Gibson from Worcester Polytechnic Institute will give a presentation on the biology, development and ecology of horseshoe crabs at 9:30, followed by a talk by Alison Leschen of the state Division of Marine Fisheries on trends in horseshoe crab fisheries from the past to the present.
“We are very pleased that this agency is taking interest,” Boleyn said of the DMF. With all the agency has on its plate, she said, “You can imagine that horseshoe crabs have not been at the top of their list, understandably.”
After a late-morning break, Mick Dawson will talk about the crabs’ role in the bio-medical industry. Dawson heads up the lab that extracts a chemical from the horseshoe crabs’ blood known as lysate. It’s used to test intravenous drugs, vaccines and medical implements for contamination.
A special showing of the PBS film “Crash: A Tale of Two Species,” by Brewster resident and filmmaker Allison Argo, follows at noon. Then Barbara Waters, a member of the Committee for the Conservation of Horseshoe Crabs, will give a presentation at 1:10 p.m. on the results of a survey conducted by the committee. Several hundred questionnaires were sent out to residents of the Cape and other nearby coastal communities asking what they remembered about numbers of horseshoe crabs in the past and how those numbers compare to the present.
Last on the program is a presentation by Mary-Jane James-Pirri, a scientist at the University of Rhode Island, who has been researching the populations of horseshoe crabs at Great Island in the National Seashore. James-Pirri will be resuming her research in cooperation with the sanctuary this summer.
The sanctuary also will be recruiting volunteers to help with crab spawning censuses and tagging work in Wellfleet Harbor. Call (508) 349-2615 for more details.
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Mar 27th, 2008