- [host Joe Hanson]
Every year east coast
beaches play host to one of the world's
wildest parties. It's all sex and
gluttony on the shore. But these spring breakers
are of the 10 legged variety. Millions of prehistoric
creatures converge here. What's behind this epic fiesta? [upbeat music] The waters of Delaware Bay
look unassuming. But as the temperatures
warm in spring, something curious
happens. Strange creatures
emerge from the depths. These ancient beings
are horseshoe crabs. Horseshoe crabs spend most of
their lives in the deep ocean but every May and June,
millions of these creatures drag
themselves ashore on sandy beaches up and
down the Atlantic coast. Some will travel 60 miles
or more just to get here. While aerial views of these
creatures are pretty cool. We wanna take you even closer. So we teamed up with our friends at DEEP LOOK to show you this. They might look like crabs. They're actually more
closely related to spiders and other arachnids, than
to crabs or lobsters. Nowhere is the concentration
of horseshoe crabs greater than here in Delaware Bay. As many as 30 million crabs,
a population greater than the size of Shanghai,
China descend on the bay. But what are they doing here? These beaches are the ultimate
horseshoe crab hookups spot. Male crabs arrived just
ahead of the females. They form a wall that
females must plow through to reach suitable nesting sites. They jostled until one lucky
male successfully grabs onto the females shell
and pulls himself a board. Each female will carry
upwards of 80,000 eggs. She buries them in the sand,
which her suitors fertilize. - [Dave] The females
burrow into the sand. So she is almost completely
covered up when she's making those nests, and the
males are on the surface of the sand and surrounding it. They like to spawn
high on the beach. The theory is that
that was a strategy to avoid aquatic predators. - [Joe] To do that
the crabs need to arrive when the
tides are highest, around the new and full
moon in May and June. Only a handful of
the thousands of eggs a female lays will
even survive a year. Fewer yet will survive
to sexual maturity. - [Dave] You just
have to buy a lot of lottery tickets have
a chance of winning. - [Joe] It's a
strategy that served them well for a long, long time. They're older than dinosaurs. - [Dave] If you saw a
fossil of a horseshoe crab from hundreds of
millions years ago, you would recognize it as a
modern day horseshoe crab. So it's a living fossil. - [Joe]
There was a time however when their survival
was in question. In the early 1900s, horseshoe
crabs were harvested by the millions and
used as fertilizer. That practice ended but today
they're harvested for bait and for a different use. Their blue blood contains an
ingredient critical to testing the safety of vaccines
and other drugs. To prevent over-harvesting,
a yearly survey is conducted around
Delaware Bay. Researchers and citizen
scientists team up to walk the beaches and count the crabs. - The horseshoe crab
surveys are the way for us to learn more about
the population. Four males, several females. It will be a recorder that
will be the person in charge of taking notes and
collecting the data. There will be a person
rolling the quadrant, which is the metric
in which randomized, which areas of the
beach we collect counts. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. - Every time I see
these crabs, I just go, this is so freaking Cool. Horseshoe crabs need big
stretches of sandy beach area. It's an environment that's
slowly disappearing around here with all of the development
so it is a big concern. - [Joe] For now
the population in
Delaware Bay appears to be healthy and growing. That's a good thing,
not only for the crabs, but for the other
spring breakers. Up to a million migratory
birds visit these shores on their way to Arctic
nesting grounds. It's not just
coincidence the crabs and the birds are here together. For the crabs it's mating
time, but for the birds it's the product of this
mating that they're here for, eggs. These tiny green gems
are horseshoe crab eggs. They litter the beaches
during mating season. The eggs are an essential all you can eat buffet
for migratory birds. Some of these birds traveled
thousands of miles to get here and their survival literally
depends on this food. - [Henrietta] Shore bird
migration is timed such that birds arrive in
the Delaware Bay during the peak of horseshoe
crab spawning. - [Joe] The threatened
Red Knot is one such traveler. It flies from the Southern
tip of South America all the way to the Arctic, a
journey of nearly 9,000 miles. - When they arrive in
the stopover locations on the Delaware Bay,
they'll be very skinny and you can almost visibly
see their breastbone. - [Joe] These nutritious
eggs are the fuel needed to complete their migration. - [Henrietta] By
the time they leave, they've blown up like a balloon that you could pop with a pin. When we think of
migration, we think of these really incredible
international events that wouldn't be
happening right here in little old Delaware. [gentle music] - [Joe] But
like any good party the morning after it
can be a real drag. - [Man] They have the ability
surprisingly to be stranded after tide has
retreated, hunkered down, stay moist, wait
for the next tide. - [Man 2] The sun
really takes a toll. So sometimes you think
they're dead until you'd give them a little push. And then when they
start moving, it's like, oh, good, I can save this one. It's almost addictive. You say, I'm just
gonna flip over 10 more and then say, well,
I can do another 10. I really do take great
pleasure in saving a big mama, knowing that she will be
able to lay eggs again. Because when you see how the
birds rely on them, you know, it's all part of
the circle of life. - [Joe] To get
a more close-up view of these amazing
little creatures, be sure to check out
the latest episode from our friends at DEEP LOOK. ♪
