PICKERING BEACH, Del. (AP) - A new fence along a Delaware beach is helping to keep horseshoe crabs from a deadly marsh.
WBOC-TV reports the crabs often climb across Pickering Beach for mating season only to become stranded and baked to death in a nearby marsh. Glenn Gauvry is the president of the nonprofit Ecological Research and Development Group, which works to protect the world's four types of horseshoe crab.
Gauvry says the high tides help crabs climb into the marsh, but the arthropods often get left stranded in the sun and die. Delaware gave Gauvry permission this year to install a 350-foot (106-meter) fence along part of the beach to block off the marsh. Gauvry says he has tentative permission to leave it up for next year's mating season.
