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Baby Asian horseshoe crabs released into the wild

Schoolchildren in Kinmen County inspect adult horseshoe crabs at an educational event organized by the Kinmen Aquaculture Research Institute yesterday. PHOTO: CNA

Some 350,000 baby Asian horseshoe crabs bred in captivity were released into the ocean near Kinmen yesterday in an effort to conserve the species.

Kinmen County Deputy Commissioner Yang Chung-chuan (楊忠全) led more than 200 Kinmen residents and students in the activity, which was held on the shores of Chienkung islet and the mouth of Wuchiang Creek.

The release was conducted under the supervision of officials from the Kinmen Aquaculture Research Institute (KARI), which bred the crabs.

KARI researchers said the horseshoe crab is nearly extinct in waters surrounding Taiwan proper but it is occasionally seen near the Penghu Island group and on the west coast of Taiwan proper.

The seas around Kinmen are among the horseshoe crab’s most important natural habitats, but even there, its numbers have declined in recent years as a result of industrial and urban development, the researchers said.

The sharp drop in the crab population prompted KARI to zone an 800-hectare coastal area near Kuningtou as Kinmen’s horseshoe crab conservation district in 1999 in the hope that its population could be preserved.

Since 2006 KARI has staged annual releases of baby horseshoe crabs to help accelerate the natural replenishment of the species, known as a “living fossil” because it has changed little in its 400 million years of existence.

Some 70,000 baby crabs were released last year.

With a distinctive domed carapace shaped like a horseshoe and a stiff pointed tail, the Asian horseshoe crab, or tachypleus tridentatus, is known as one of Taiwan’s few “living fossil” species.
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