Mitigating environmentalism: On quahogs and horseshoe crabs

My clam bed, our clam bed, has been severely damaged in the name of environmentalism. "Wetland mitigation" resembles The Inquisition--noble purpose, squiggly means, and disastrous consequences.

The quahogs left after Evergreen Environmental  "removed a portion of the old rail bed and restored 7 acres to marsh" are stressed. I'm stressed. The folks at Evergreen Environmental get blessed by the government to "improve" a patch of the planet that had just about recovered from the last time humans intervened.

I still managed to scrape up enough quahogs for a fine June meal, then wandered over to the bay to watch the sunset.

Dusk, June 22, Delaware  [credit: Leslie Doyle]

The water was high, and still rising under the Full Strawberry Moon--and along its edge, the annual orgy of horseshoe crabs, their shells glistening under the shared light of the setting sun and the rising moon. In this dreamy June twilight, anything is possible.

I had been worried about my horseshoe crab critters--Sandy had walloped us pretty good--but the writhing critters enjoying the June dusk reminded me there's a reason they have been around since before the rise and fall of the dinosaurs.

They will survive us, too.