Our Story
Our Mission
The Ecological Research & Development Group (ERDG), founded in 1995, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit wildlife conservation organization dedicated to protecting the world’s four horseshoe crab species. ERDG believes environmental stewardship and economic prosperity are not in conflict—they can and must evolve together.
To that end, we work to inspire and assist individuals, communities, governments, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, and industries to solve problems, change behaviors, and make sound decisions that lead to sustainable ecosystems, compassionate conservation, and shared prosperity.
Our Philosophy
At ERDG, we believe conservation begins not with mandates, but with mindset. Our work is rooted in the conviction that real change arises when people care enough to act—not out of guilt or pressure, but from genuine understanding and connection. We are not here to dictate, but to listen.
We build trust, meet people where they are, and foster partnerships that turn conflict into cooperation. Whether working with resource users, regulators, researchers, or communities, we strive to illuminate the value of coexistence rather than compliance.”
We believe the story of the horseshoe crab is more than an ecological concern—it is a call to conscience. In their ancient resilience, we see a reflection of our responsibility. And in the quiet, persistent work of conservation, we see the power of heart-led leadership to shape a more compassionate future.
The Biography of an Idea
An exhibition exploring the evolution of compassionate conservation
Some organizations are built around programs. Others around campaigns. Still others around individuals. ERDG began with a question.
What if conservation could begin not with conflict, but with understanding?
Over the next three decades, that simple question gave rise to unexpected relationships, innovations, international collaborations, and a philosophy that gradually reached far beyond the conservation of horseshoe crabs.
This exhibition is not simply the history of an organization. It is the biography of an idea. An idea that continues to evolve—one conversation, one act of stewardship, and one unexpected connection at a time.
As you move through the six rooms that make up this exhibition, you will encounter more than accomplishments. You will witness the unfolding of a philosophy. One that reminds us that lasting conservation begins not by changing nature… but by changing our relationship with it.
Compassion
1995-2003
Stewardship
2003-2007
Community
2007-2014
Coexistence
2004-2024
Relationship
1911-Present
Legacy
1995-Present
Every meaningful journey begins with a different way of seeing.
When ERDG was founded in 1995, horseshoe crabs had survived for more than 450 million years, yet few recognized their ecological importance or considered their future. Conservation was fragmented, information scarce, and no organization existed solely to speak on behalf of these ancient mariners.
This room explores the years when a simple idea took shape—that lasting conservation begins not by waiting for a crisis, but by helping people connect with the living world around them.
ERDG discovered that a single act of compassion could change how someone saw a horseshoe crab. Once people helped one, it became difficult to walk past another with indifference.
Compassion became connection. Connection became stewardship. Before a global movement could emerge, people had to care.
In the early 1990s, horseshoe crabs occupied a curious place in the public imagination. They were ancient, abundant, and often overlooked. To some they were bait. To others a source of biomedical testing materials. To many they were simply another creature inhabiting the shoreline. Yet beneath the surface, pressures were beginning to build.
Growing harvest demands, habitat loss, and increasing competition for coastal resources were raising questions about the future of a species that had survived for more than 450 million years. Scientists, resource managers, fishermen, and conservationists were each focused on different parts of the puzzle, but no organization existed whose sole purpose was to advocate for horseshoe crabs themselves.
ERDG was created to fill that gap. Its mission was not born from crisis, but from a belief: that conservation is most effective when it begins before a species reaches the brink.
Rather than waiting to react to problems after they occur, ERDG sought to foster understanding, encourage stewardship, and build the relationships needed to prevent those problems from occurring in the first place.
From the beginning, the goal was larger than protecting a single species. The horseshoe crab became a vehicle through which people could reconnect with the natural world, discover their capacity for compassion, and recognize that lasting conservation depends not only on science and policy, but on the choices individuals and communities make every day.
What began as a small nonprofit dedicated to an ancient mariner would gradually become something far larger than its founders ever imagined.
Not because ERDG set out to build a global organization. But because every act of stewardship invited another. Every question uncovered another. Every relationship opened another door.
Before anyone could become part of the story… they first needed a way to hear it. And horseshoe crabs needed a voice.
When ERDG was founded, finding reliable information about horseshoe crabs was surprisingly difficult.
Scientists often worked within their own disciplines. Educators had limited resources. Citizens interested in learning rarely knew where to begin. Even along the coast, many people knew little about the remarkable animal sharing their shoreline.
Today it is easy to take global connectivity for granted. In the mid-1990s, it was not.
Long before social media transformed communication, ERDG created the world’s first website dedicated exclusively to horseshoe crabs. What began as a simple effort to share information quickly became something much larger.
For the first time, educators, students, researchers, conservationists, fishermen, policymakers, and curious citizens could find a common place to learn, explore, and connect.
The website became more than a place to find information. It became a meeting place.
Questions led to conversations. Conversations led to relationships. Relationships led to opportunities that would eventually extend far beyond the shores of North America.
Perhaps most importantly, the website helped reveal something ERDG would encounter again and again over the next three decades:
People were willing to care. What they often lacked was an invitation. By giving horseshoe crabs a voice, ERDG was also helping people discover their own.
The challenge now was transforming awareness into something more enduring. How do you help people move from learning about conservation to becoming part of it?
Awareness is important. But awareness, by itself, changes very little.
People may admire a species, learn its history, or even become concerned about its future. Yet concern, by itself, does not create stewardship.
ERDG’s next challenge was finding ways to transform awareness into participation. The answer emerged through a series of seemingly simple ideas.
ERDG’s life-sized horseshoe crab model began traveling to schools, museums, aquariums, festivals, and community events, allowing people to experience firsthand an animal many had never seen up close.
ERDG’s Young Voices™ Horseshoe Crabs in the Arts program invited students to explore conservation through creativity, giving them an opportunity to express what they had learned through art, writing, and imagination. Selected Young Voices™ artwork traveled internationally through ERDG’s website and exhibitions, reminding audiences around the world that conservation can be seen through the eyes of a child.
And along shorelines throughout the spawning season, another ERDG initiative quietly took root: Just flip ’em!™ Each year, countless horseshoe crabs become stranded upside down by waves, tides, obstacles, or exhaustion. Most people walk past without understanding what they are seeing.
The solution was remarkably simple. Encourage beachgoers to turn them over. One small act of compassion. One individual helping one animal. Yet something unexpected happened.
People who stopped to help often left with a deeper connection to the natural world around them. They began asking questions. They began paying attention. Many became advocates, educators, volunteers, and stewards.
The lesson was profound. ERDG discovered that lasting stewardship rarely begins with information alone. It begins with a moment of connection. The moment someone helps a stranded horseshoe crab, shares a child’s artwork, restores a spawning beach, or contributes to a community effort, conservation ceases to be an abstract idea. One small act of compassion can forever change the way someone sees the natural world.
As more people became involved, a new possibility emerged: What if stewardship could become more than individual acts of kindness? What if it could become the work of entire communities?
As more people became involved in horseshoe crab conservation, a new realization emerged. Awareness could inspire action. Action could inspire compassion. But lasting conservation required something more. It required communities willing to become stewards—not stewardship imposed from above, but stewardship embraced by the people living closest to the resource.
Along the Atlantic coast, countless residents shared their shorelines each spring with spawning horseshoe crabs. They witnessed the migrations, observed the challenges, and often cared deeply about the future of the species. What many lacked was a meaningful way to participate. ERDG sought to change that.
ERDG’s Backyard Stewardship™ Community Horseshoe Crab Sanctuary Program offered communities an opportunity to move beyond concern and become active partners in conservation. Participating communities committed themselves to protecting spawning habitat, discouraging harvest, avoiding shoreline hardening, and assisting stranded horseshoe crabs whenever possible.
What began as a local initiative gradually expanded into a growing network of communities connected by a shared commitment to stewardship. The lesson was simple but powerful: people are far more likely to protect something when they feel a personal connection and a shared responsibility for its future.
Stewardship was no longer confined to scientists, conservation organizations, or government agencies. It belonged to everyone.
And as that circle expanded, another realization emerged. The future of horseshoe crab conservation would not be determined solely by what happened along the shores of North America.
Three other horseshoe crab species inhabited the waters of Asia. Little was known about their status. Even less was known about the people working to protect them.
A new question was beginning to take shape: What responsibility did we have to horseshoe crabs beyond our own shoreline?
As ERDG’s work expanded along the Atlantic coast, another pattern gradually became visible. The questions surrounding horseshoe crabs did not end at the edge of North America.
Some of the answers had already begun to take shape elsewhere. Others had yet to be asked.
Long before ERDG began building bridges across oceans, another bridge was quietly being built much closer to home.
Its architect was Dr. Carl N. Shuster Jr.
Recognized throughout the world as one of the foremost authorities on horseshoe crabs, Carl devoted his life to understanding an animal that few people noticed and even fewer truly understood. His knowledge was extraordinary, yet what made the greatest impression was not the depth of his expertise.
It was his generosity in sharing it.
For ERDG’s founder, Carl became mentor, colleague, and friend. Over more than 20 years, until Carl’s passing in 2020, that relationship unfolded through countless telephone conversations and letters, while traveling together, walking spawning beaches, attending conferences, and during the many informal gatherings and quiet moments in between.
Through it all, Carl shared something that extended far beyond horseshoe crabs: a way of looking at the world.
He taught him to slow down. To observe before concluding. To ask why before deciding. To respect evidence, while remaining open to discovering something unexpected.
Most importantly, Carl taught him to see the horseshoe crab not as a resource, a scientific curiosity, or an environmental issue, but as a remarkable living being with its own evolutionary story stretching back more than 450 million years.
That perspective quietly shaped everything ERDG would become.
Programs changed. Partnerships expanded. New ideas emerged. Yet the habit of looking first through the eyes of the animal remained constant.
Carl also demonstrated something equally important.
Knowledge is not diminished when it is shared. It grows.
Throughout his career, he welcomed students, fishermen, researchers, educators, conservationists, and anyone genuinely interested in learning. He understood that conservation advances not by protecting knowledge, but by passing it forward.
For ERDG’s founder, Carl’s greatest gift was not information.
It was a way of seeing. One rooted in curiosity, humility, patience, and respect for the living world. Those lessons quietly became part of ERDG’s foundation.
Years later, when opportunities arose to build relationships across Asia, collaborate with people from different cultures, and explore unfamiliar perspectives, ERDG's founder, Glenn Gauvry, discovered that Carl had prepared him not simply to study horseshoe crabs. He had prepared him to remain a lifelong student.
And for lifelong students, every horizon becomes an invitation.
Every journey begins long before we recognize its destination.
By the early 2000s, as ERDG’s work matured, its founder came to understand that horseshoe crabs were far more than a North American story. Three additional species inhabited the coastal waters of Asia, yet little was known about them within the conservation community he had come to know.
Curiosity became a compass.
In 2003, ERDG’s founder traveled alone to Japan. He spoke no Japanese. He had no established network of colleagues waiting to receive him. He carried with him little more than an open mind, a deep respect for the culture he was about to enter, and a simple desire to learn.
The trip was not about presenting ideas. It was about listening. Observing. Experiencing another part of the horseshoe crab’s world through the eyes of the people who knew it best.
The journey answered few questions. It revealed better ones.
Sometimes the most important step in conservation is not finding the answer. It is having the courage to follow a question wherever it may lead.
Every act of stewardship begins somewhere.
For ERDG, that beginning was along the beaches of Delaware Bay, where local volunteers, educators, and coastal communities discovered that even small acts of compassion could make a difference. Yet the more people learned, the clearer it became that the challenges facing horseshoe crabs did not end at the shoreline. Their story stretched across oceans, cultures, and continents.
This room explores the years when ERDG began looking beyond its own coastline, building new relationships with researchers, conservationists, educators, and communities around the world. What began as a local effort gradually became something larger—a shared commitment to protecting a species whose future depended on cooperation rather than geography.
What began on one shoreline was now being carried by many.
Dr. Carl N. Shuster Jr., a leading authority on horseshoe crabs, had shown ERDG’s founder that the best scientists never stop asking questions.
Carl often spoke of colleagues around the world who shared his fascination with horseshoe crabs, including researchers in Japan whom he deeply respected. Through those conversations, ERDG began to glimpse a much larger world—one stretching from Japan and China through Southeast Asia to India.
The realization was profound.
The question was no longer whether others cared.
They did.
The question was:
How could those scattered efforts become a community?
For nearly a decade, ERDG had focused primarily on the American horseshoe crab. Partnerships were forming across North America, communities were becoming involved, and awareness was growing.
Yet another question lingered.
What was happening to the other three species?
The answer was surprisingly difficult to find. Information was limited. Communication was fragmented. Researchers, educators, conservationists, and community advocates often worked independently, separated by geography, language, and circumstance.
The more ERDG learned, the clearer something became.
Horseshoe crab conservation could not be understood through a single species—or secured within a single country.
If one species mattered, all four mattered.
If stewardship mattered, it had to extend wherever horseshoe crabs lived.
The answer began with a single bridge.
And across the Pacific, that bridge was waiting to be built.
Every meaningful change begins as an idea that does not yet have a place in the world.
By 2007, ERDG had spent more than a decade building relationships throughout North America and Asia. Scientists, conservationists, educators, government agencies, biomedical companies, aquariums, and volunteers all shared a deep concern for horseshoe crabs. Yet most had never met.
This room explores the moment when one question changed everything:
What if the people working to protect all four species could become a single community?
What followed was more than the first international workshop. It was the beginning of a global network built not on geography, but on trust, collaboration, and a shared commitment to conservation.
Communities transcend geography when people discover a shared purpose.
Rather than waiting to react to problems after they occur, ERDG sought to foster understanding, encourage stewardship, and build the relationships needed to prevent those problems from occurring in the first place.
From the beginning, the goal was larger than protecting a single species. The horseshoe crab became a vehicle through which people could reconnect with the natural world, discover their capacity for compassion, and recognize that lasting conservation depends not only on science and policy, but on the choices individuals and communities make every day.
What began as a small nonprofit dedicated to an ancient mariner would gradually become something far larger than its founders ever imagined.
Not because ERDG set out to build a global organization. But because every act of stewardship invited another. Every question uncovered another. Every relationship opened another door.
Before anyone could become part of the story… they first needed a way to hear it. And horseshoe crabs needed a voice.
Rather than waiting to react to problems after they occur, ERDG sought to foster understanding, encourage stewardship, and build the relationships needed to prevent those problems from occurring in the first place.
From the beginning, the goal was larger than protecting a single species. The horseshoe crab became a vehicle through which people could reconnect with the natural world, discover their capacity for compassion, and recognize that lasting conservation depends not only on science and policy, but on the choices individuals and communities make every day.
What began as a small nonprofit dedicated to an ancient mariner would gradually become something far larger than its founders ever imagined.
Not because ERDG set out to build a global organization. But because every act of stewardship invited another. Every question uncovered another. Every relationship opened another door.
Before anyone could become part of the story… they first needed a way to hear it. And horseshoe crabs needed a voice.
Every conservation challenge begins where human needs and the natural world meet.
For ERDG, the question was never whether people or wildlife should prevail. It was whether a better path could be found—one that reduced conflict while allowing both to thrive.
Over the next two decades, that question inspired new partnerships, practical innovations, educational programs, and creative solutions that balanced science, stewardship, and human needs. Each initiative addressed a different challenge, yet all were guided by the same belief: lasting conservation succeeds when it works with people rather than against them.
This room explores how one simple philosophy shaped countless solutions.
Conservation flourishes when we reduce the friction between people and nature.
Rather than waiting to react to problems after they occur, ERDG sought to foster understanding, encourage stewardship, and build the relationships needed to prevent those problems from occurring in the first place.
From the beginning, the goal was larger than protecting a single species. The horseshoe crab became a vehicle through which people could reconnect with the natural world, discover their capacity for compassion, and recognize that lasting conservation depends not only on science and policy, but on the choices individuals and communities make every day.
What began as a small nonprofit dedicated to an ancient mariner would gradually become something far larger than its founders ever imagined.
Not because ERDG set out to build a global organization. But because every act of stewardship invited another. Every question uncovered another. Every relationship opened another door.
Before anyone could become part of the story… they first needed a way to hear it. And horseshoe crabs needed a voice.
Rather than waiting to react to problems after they occur, ERDG sought to foster understanding, encourage stewardship, and build the relationships needed to prevent those problems from occurring in the first place.
From the beginning, the goal was larger than protecting a single species. The horseshoe crab became a vehicle through which people could reconnect with the natural world, discover their capacity for compassion, and recognize that lasting conservation depends not only on science and policy, but on the choices individuals and communities make every day.
What began as a small nonprofit dedicated to an ancient mariner would gradually become something far larger than its founders ever imagined.
Not because ERDG set out to build a global organization. But because every act of stewardship invited another. Every question uncovered another. Every relationship opened another door.
Before anyone could become part of the story… they first needed a way to hear it. And horseshoe crabs needed a voice.
Every relationship creates possibilities that did not exist before.
Those relationships gradually grew into an international community that ERDG helped cultivate through trust, shared purpose, and a growing commitment to horseshoe crab conservation. Researchers, educators, conservation organizations, government agencies, biomedical companies, aquariums, and citizen stewards were no longer working in isolation. Relationships had become pathways through which knowledge, experience, and innovation could travel.
Individual contributions remained uniquely their own. Yet something remarkable happened when they became connected. A scientific discovery informed conservation on another continent. An educational program inspired a community thousands of miles away. A lesson learned in one country helped shape decisions in another.
One action became more powerful because it no longer stood alone.
This room explores the moment when relationships began to amplify impact, allowing an idea to spread farther than any one person or organization could have carried it alone.
Progress accelerates when knowledge, trust, and purpose are shared.
Rather than waiting to react to problems after they occur, ERDG sought to foster understanding, encourage stewardship, and build the relationships needed to prevent those problems from occurring in the first place.
From the beginning, the goal was larger than protecting a single species. The horseshoe crab became a vehicle through which people could reconnect with the natural world, discover their capacity for compassion, and recognize that lasting conservation depends not only on science and policy, but on the choices individuals and communities make every day.
What began as a small nonprofit dedicated to an ancient mariner would gradually become something far larger than its founders ever imagined.
Not because ERDG set out to build a global organization. But because every act of stewardship invited another. Every question uncovered another. Every relationship opened another door.
Before anyone could become part of the story… they first needed a way to hear it. And horseshoe crabs needed a voice.
Rather than waiting to react to problems after they occur, ERDG sought to foster understanding, encourage stewardship, and build the relationships needed to prevent those problems from occurring in the first place.
From the beginning, the goal was larger than protecting a single species. The horseshoe crab became a vehicle through which people could reconnect with the natural world, discover their capacity for compassion, and recognize that lasting conservation depends not only on science and policy, but on the choices individuals and communities make every day.
What began as a small nonprofit dedicated to an ancient mariner would gradually become something far larger than its founders ever imagined.
Not because ERDG set out to build a global organization. But because every act of stewardship invited another. Every question uncovered another. Every relationship opened another door.
Before anyone could become part of the story… they first needed a way to hear it. And horseshoe crabs needed a voice.
The final room explores what the journey revealed.
The story of ERDG is not simply the story of an organization, nor is it the only story of horseshoe crab conservation.
It is the story of an idea tested over three decades—an idea that invited understanding before conflict, relationships before division, and stewardship before crisis.
Whether that idea continues to grow is no longer a question for ERDG alone. Like every idea that emerged from countless relationships before it, its future will be shaped by the people who carry it forward.
Rather than waiting to react to problems after they occur, ERDG sought to foster understanding, encourage stewardship, and build the relationships needed to prevent those problems from occurring in the first place.
From the beginning, the goal was larger than protecting a single species. The horseshoe crab became a vehicle through which people could reconnect with the natural world, discover their capacity for compassion, and recognize that lasting conservation depends not only on science and policy, but on the choices individuals and communities make every day.
What began as a small nonprofit dedicated to an ancient mariner would gradually become something far larger than its founders ever imagined.
Not because ERDG set out to build a global organization. But because every act of stewardship invited another. Every question uncovered another. Every relationship opened another door.
Before anyone could become part of the story… they first needed a way to hear it. And horseshoe crabs needed a voice.
Rather than waiting to react to problems after they occur, ERDG sought to foster understanding, encourage stewardship, and build the relationships needed to prevent those problems from occurring in the first place.
From the beginning, the goal was larger than protecting a single species. The horseshoe crab became a vehicle through which people could reconnect with the natural world, discover their capacity for compassion, and recognize that lasting conservation depends not only on science and policy, but on the choices individuals and communities make every day.
What began as a small nonprofit dedicated to an ancient mariner would gradually become something far larger than its founders ever imagined.
Not because ERDG set out to build a global organization. But because every act of stewardship invited another. Every question uncovered another. Every relationship opened another door.
Before anyone could become part of the story… they first needed a way to hear it. And horseshoe crabs needed a voice.
