The American Littoral Society’s new Ask a Scientist series features our expert staff answering your questions.

For the first installment in the series, we are joined by Quinn Whitesall McHerron, Delaware Bayshore Habitat Restoration Coordinator, to answer your questions about horseshoe crabs. She has been managing the Society’s horseshoe crab tagging program since 2014. Through the years, she has introduced thousands of people to these living fossils and the wonders of Delaware Bay.

Quinn and the tagging program have been featured on several programs, including a Japanese variety show “Sekai no Hate Made ItteQ!” and the television series Xploration Awesome Planet, as well as several news articles, publications, and a podcast.

Her passion for the coastal environment was evident before she joined the Littoral Society. She received her B.S. in Marine Science at Stockton University and is currently pursuing the Professional Science Master Coastal Zone Management Program at Stockton.

This video was filmed at Reeds Beach in Cape May County, NJ. Joining Quinn on the sand is Zach Nickerson, Conservation Coordinator for the Littoral Society.
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We were inspired at the 2022 Restore America’s Estuaries Conference to start this series, and we wanted to thank San Francisco Estuary Partnership for helping us bring the idea to New Jersey!

The American Littoral Society’s “Shuck It, Don’t Chuck It” Shell Recycling Program is happy to announce the opening of our second community drop-off station outside the Shore Fresh Seafood Market and Restaurant in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ.

The new site is located at 57 Channel Drive in Point Pleasant Beach, next to the inlet for Lake Louise. We are thrilled to be working with Shore Fresh to increase the reach of our shell recycling program, which in turn increases our coastal restoration capacity.

To find the drop-off site, go to the waterside of the Shore Fresh parking area closest to the Broadway bridge (towards the right when facing the front of the restaurant). You can also find the location marked with a yellow pin on the Participating Restaurants interactive map on the Shell Recycling page of our website.

 
During April and early May, the American Littoral Society Education program hosted five beach plantings and clean ups. As part of those events, more than 8,000 native species were planted on beaches in Monmouth County, NJ and 70 pounds of trash were removed. This work involved volunteers from a number of corporations and students from area schools.

In addition to helping plant beaches in Perth Amboy and Bradley Beach, corporate volunteers also learned about the importance of living sustainably and avoiding using single use plastic items, as well as what it means to make coastal communities more resilient.

Monmouth County students got involved through the Littoral Society’s “Beach Grasses in Classes” program. In addition to hearing about the importance of dunes in their community, their classroom presentations focused on native and invasive grasses, how to stabilize a dune, and general beach ecology.

Participating students then came out for a volunteer event in in Asbury Park, NJ on Sunday, April 23 (just after Earth Day) to plant their little culms of American beachgrass and other native grasses on bare spots along the dunes.
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Many thanks to the New Jersey Plant Materials Center in Cape May and Cicconi Farms in Jackson, NJ for providing plants used for these events.