A Compassionate Look at Endangered Horseshoe Crabs Who Get Stranded on New Jersey Shores

As part of hisTrue Factsseries, the always entertainingZe Franktakes an amusing yet compassionate look at the horseshoe crabs who come onto the shore of the New Jersey coastline to reproduce, noting how these sea creatures are closer to spiders than they are to crabs.

They're the only surviving members of Zifosaura, an order of arthropods that are closer to spiders than they are crabs. And they've been doing this for a long time. They look pretty much the same as they did 250 million years ago.

He also describes how they come to shore reproduce, how some of them are unable to make it back to the water, the dangers they face from birds and humans and how a caring group of people at The Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, New Jersey are teaching the next generation to care for this endangered species.

They organize beach walks where anyone can sign up or be trained to lead walks. On these walks, if you come across a horseshoe crab that was turned on its back by the high tide waves and maybe too weak to right itself, you turn it over, not by the tail, though, and that can hurt them. And you do the same if you find ones that are trapped or tangled. You can even throw in a couple words of encouragement if you wanted.

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The post A Compassionate Look at Endangered Horseshoe Crabs Who Get Stranded on New Jersey Shores was originally published on Laughing Squid.