Cleanup crews visited Ocean City this week to begin clearing out a large number of dead horseshoe crabs that have collected at the end of the 94th Street canal.
Wearing head-to-toe personal protective equipment, workers from Hepaco, an environmental cleanup company, took to the water Thursday to scoop up the dead arthropods, which have been gathering in the canal over a period of weeks.
In the meantime, officials continue to investigate the cause of the die-offs, which have become increasingly common in the canal over the last five years. City Manager Terry McGean said this year’s mortality event is much larger than what is typically seen at 94th Street.
“We know why the crabs end up there — it is the end of a large canal system,” he said, “but we don’t know why they are dying in such large numbers this year. [The University of Maryland Eastern Shore] has been out and they are unsure as well. We have had the crabs removed three times in the last two weeks. Typically, we only have to do it once.”