This May and June, for the fifteenth year, we will be conducting horseshoe crab spawning surveys in Duxbury Bay. To do this, a team of 2-3 people walks/wades along a ~800 meter stretch of the Duxbury Bay shoreline north of the Powder Point Bridge. The team uses poles and rope to define a 5m x 5m square, and crabs inside the square are counted, sexed, and the different clusters in which they are arranged (single crabs, pairs, larger groups) are noted. This process is then repeated in approximately 40 squares along the shore. Surveys occur around the full and new moons in May and June. There are three daytime surveys (usually late morning, midday, and early afternoon) and three nighttime surveys (usually late evening, midnight, and early morning).
If you would like to volunteer to help with the 2023 surveys, please sign up here.
There will be trainings held in the morning on May 2nd and May 4th for new volunteers and those who need a refresher.
We are asking volunteers to sign up for all the possible dates for which they are available, and then teams will be assigned to each date prior to each survey round. Please sign up for at least four surveys, even though you may only be assigned to a minimum of two. Please note that you must be able to walk on sand for about a mile, and that you will be getting wet feet at a minimum (one team member usually is also in the water up to their waist as well).
(Photos by Lauren Owens Lambert.)