Sun. Sept. 15 2 PM Horseshoe Crabs: A Fascinating Conservation Study at Durand-Hedden

Horseshoe Crabs: A Fascinating Conservation Study

Sunday, September 15, 2019 at Durand Hedden; 1pm to 4pm; doors open at 1; talk begins at 2

MAPLEWOOD, NJ – August 2019 – If you headed ‘down the Shore’ this summer, you may have brushed up against a few horseshoe crabs on the beach – and had hardly given a thought to these odd, distant relatives of spiders. Yet horseshoe crabs are 300 million-year-old living fossils that are so valuable that in the late 1990s they became the center of a perfect storm of competing interests.

At 2:00 p.m. Sunday, September 15, New Jersey environmentalist Tedor Whitman will tell us why commercial fisheries, tourism officials, ornithologists, government (local, county, state, and federal) agencies, and pharmaceutical interests all fought to determine the use and future of these animals. Fortunately, the fate of the horseshoe crab fell into the hands of a resourceful biological technician and a handful of determined citizens.

Tedor Whitman is the Executive Director of the Cora Hartshorn Arboretum and Bird Sanctuary in Short Hills. He has over 25 years of experience teaching and leading conservation programs across a wide range of U.S. ecosystems. Before joining the Arboretum in 2014, Tedor was, among other things, the Director of Education for Zoo Miami and Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo, a high school biology teacher at the TERRA Environmental Research Center, and the Director of Biological Stewardship at a large nature center in Westchester, N.Y. For seven years, he was also the Director of Education for the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, NJ.

The event is free; donations are welcome. The Durand-Hedden House is located at 523 Ridgewood Road in Maplewood. For more information contact 973-763-7712 or @durandhedden.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">info@durandhedden.org.

Durand-Hedden House & Garden will be open from 1 to 4pm for visitors who would like to view the house and Maplewood Garden Club herb garden, take in the informative and deeply researched exhibit The History of Slavery in New Jersey, and shop at the Country Store.

Country Shopping

Check out our Country Store’s historic-themed treasures: early American games, books, and toys; facsimile documents; quill pens and ink; historic cookbooks; cookie molds; tin lanterns; and reproductive decorative items and ceramics. There is local honey and the Original 1910 Chocolate Fudge Sauce. You’ll also discover the hard-to-find original Doors of Maplewood poster, Smile: A Pictorial History of Olympic Park 1887-1965, and the acid-free reproduction of the charming 1931 Map of Maplewood.

About Durand-Hedden House and Garden

Durand-Hedden House is dedicated to telling the history of the development of Maplewood and the surrounding area in new and engaging ways. It is located in Grasmere Park at 523 Ridgewood Road in Maplewood. For more information or to arrange group tours call 973-763-7712. You can also visit our website at durandhedden.org and find us on Facebook and Twitter.

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I "saved" an upside down horseshoe crab on LBI a few weeks ago. It was full of barnacles and it looked like something had taken a big ol' bite out of it, but it was alive and struggling. Not sure I was doing it any favors, but I would certainly appreciate someone helping me even in my decrepit state. Sent it on its (more or less) merry way...


Another anecdote: My family used to vacation in Cape May and I was terrified of horseshoe crabs--so scary looking. I think they are quite wonderful now.



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