The horseshoe crab management meeting will be held in Dover Thursday. (Photo courtesy of DNREC)
The Delaware Bay is home to an estimated 30 million horseshoe crabs, making it the world’s largest breeding ground for this species, and a state agency wants to inform the public more on these critters.
The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), through its Division of Fish and Wildlife, will hold a public meeting on the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) horseshoe crab management plan on Thursday, March 27.
The meeting will take place from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Little Creek Hunter Education Training Center, located at 3018 Bayside Drive in Dover.
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The meeting will focus on proposed changes to the ASMFC’s horseshoe crab management plan, including allowing the ASMFC Management Board to set specifications for male-only harvests over multiple years.
Discussion topics will also cover potential male-only harvest limits, seasonal restrictions, and harvest caps for Maryland and Virginia.
These proposed changes stem from a workshop held last year in Lewes, which brought together stakeholders from various sectors, including commercial harvesters, conservationists, biomedical representatives, and fishery managers, to discuss the future of the Delaware Bay-origin horseshoe crab fishery.
Raised in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Jarek earned a B.A. in journalism and a B.A. in political science from Temple University in 2021. After running CNN’s Michael Smerconish’s YouTube channel, Jarek became a reporter for the Bucks County Herald before joining Delaware LIVE News.
Jarek can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at (215) 450-9982. Follow him on Twitter @jarekrutz and on LinkedIn.
Source: delawarelive.com…