What do medical labs, fishermen, migratory birds and local rockfish have in common? They absolutely depend on horseshoe crabs to lay billions of springtime eggs along the Delaware bays.
Locally, the crab population around Delawareâs inland bays is remaining steady. But itâs not increasing. Overharvesting already caused a 90-percent decline in population since about 1990. At the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays, keeping an accurate count is the first step to ensuring we can continue using this resource. The CIB recently reported on the past six seasons of data collection, which relies heavily on volunteer, or citizen scientists.