Conservationists in Chiayi County have successfully bred more than 600 endangered tri-spine horseshoe crabs, setting a nationwide record.
Chiayi County Commissioner Weng Chang-liang (翁章梁) and local officials on Tuesday visited the rearing facility in Budai Township (布袋) to commend the effort led by the Chiayi County Ecological Conservation Association.
After many years absent from the township’s Haomeiliao Wetland (好美寮溼地), the county government in 2019 conducted a survey of the juvenile horseshoe crab population, finding a total of just 14 in two months, Weng said.
Photo provoided by the Chiayi County Government
The living fossil scientifically known as Tachypleus tridentatus has been in decline worldwide, and in 2019 was upgraded to endangered status by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The horseshoe crabs’ survival is at risk due to overfishing, marine pollution, habitat destruction and warming oceans, as they cannot regulate their body temperature.
In Taiwan, where they were once abundant, juvenile horseshoe crabs can now only be spotted regularly in Kinmen and Penghu counties.
Horseshoe crabs — which are thought to be more closely related to spiders and scorpions than to crabs — lay their eggs in nurseries on sandy beaches.
After hatching, the larvae swim in the ocean for about six days before settling in shallow intertidal waters, where they feed at low tide.
They mature after about two years, at which point they move a few kilometers offshore until it is time to reproduce.
It was once difficult to find adults for breeding, and when they do mate, not many survive into adulthood, association secretary-general Su Yin-tien (蘇銀添) said.
To increase the population, the county government this year notified fishers about the situation, urging them to send any adults of the species they catch to the association, Su said.
Access to more breeding adults, as well as years of conservation experience, allowed the association to facilitate the mating, which produced more than 600 viable juveniles, an exceedingly rare achievement, he said.
After maturing for about two years, some would be released into a suitable wetland area, while the remaining horseshoe crabs would be kept for observation or sent to schools, he added.
The county is to build a horseshoe crab conservation center, for which designs have been completed and a tender should be issued late this year, he said.
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