Horseshoe Crabs

Horseshoe Crabs

Long Beach Island, NJ

Summers 1974-1995

Every Memorial Day weekend, they shown up in the bay, behind our house at the Jersey shore.  Hundreds of them showed up.  They were big, prehistoric looking, ugly and locked together by their tails.  We would pick one up by the tail and ten others were chained tightly together.  We would shake them but they never became untangled. They hung together as a singular unit.

One year, there were a fewer than the previous year.  Then the next year, even more of them didn't show up. Finally, we had a year where not one of them showed up.  They vanished.

I recently went on a beach watch to see these creatures that I haven't seen for 20 years. There were many of them but nothing compared to the numbers that used to come to our bay.

A naturalist spoke to us about their habitat and migration traits.  He warned us never to touch these creatures as they are more delicate than they look.  "And never pick then up by the tails, never," he warned us.

It seemed as if he was looking directly at me.

"Why?" I asked.

"It rips their insides out.  It kills them". His words stung me as I wonder how many our family killed.