May 29, 2026 — A national environmental organization Thursday filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for failing to protect American horseshoe crabs under the Endangered Species Act.
The Center for Biological Diversity is among more than two dozen organizations that petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service to protect horseshoe crabs in 2024.
May 22, 2026 — Thousands of horseshoe crabs have begun arriving along Maryland’s beaches as part of the oldest wildlife migrations on Earth, a phenomenon scientists say dates back roughly 350 million years.
According to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the annual spawning season for the species stretches from May through July and peaks during high tides surrounding the full and new moons in June.
In 2026, the best viewing opportunities are expected around June 15 and June 29. Popular viewing locations include Sunset Park near the Ocean City Inlet and several Chesapeake Bay spawning beaches identified on the department’s Horseshoe Crab Volunteer Angler Survey.
May 7, 2026 — A coalition of seafood companies including several local businesses filed a federal lawsuit challenging new federal seafood import restrictions that they say could devastate crab processing operations on the Eastern Shore and disrupt the nation’s crab supply chain.
While the companies have been successful in delaying those restrictions, the federal government could reintroduce them this month.
The original lawsuit, acquired by WBOC, was filed in October of 2025 in the United States Court of International Trade by the National Fisheries Institute, Restaurant Law Center, and several seafood importers and processors. Those businesses included Baltimore-based Phillips Foods and Salisbury-based Handy Seafood, Cebu Pacific LLC, and Byrd International Inc.
March 25, 2026 — The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has notified NOAA Fisheries of its intent to sue the agency after it denied a petition to list horseshoe crabs under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
“Horseshoe crabs watched the dinosaurs come and go, but now they face their greatest threat yet: us,” CBD Senior Attorney Danny Waltz said in a release. “Fortunately, we also have the power to save horseshoe crabs by protecting them under the Endangered Species Act.”
February 20, 2026 — NOAA Fisheries has denied Endangered Species Act protections for the Atlantic horseshoe crab, a lumbering species whose unique blood is highly valued by the biomedical industry.
Faced with two petitions that urged designating the species as either threatened or endangered, the federal agency instead concluded no ESA listing was warranted.
“There has been improvement in the population status and trends of regional populations from New Hampshire to Florida-Atlantic, with the exception of New York,” NOAA Fisheries announced this week, adding that “the petitions rely on obsolete and incorrect information to infer the current status and trends of the species.”
January 6, 2026 — The Center for Biological Diversity is suing the federal government for failing to protect American horseshoe crabs under the Endangered Species Act.
Will Harlan, a senior scientist at the Center, says since 2000, horseshoe crab populations have crashed by more than 70% across their range from Maine to Louisiana.
January 2, 2025 — New York State will phase out the catch of horseshoe crabs in its waters for bait and biomedical use over the next four years, beginning in 2026.
Although supporters of the Horseshoe Crab Protection Act had urged an immediate ban, Gov. Kathy Hochul obtained the agreement of legislative leaders to reduce the catch by increments, leading to a total prohibition in 2029.
She said she had vetoed the bill a year ago because the earlier bill would not have given the fishing industry enough time to adapt.
The allowed catch, to be managed by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, will be reduced by 25 percent in 2026, 50 percent in 2027 and 75 percent in 2028 until the full ban goes into effect the next year.
December 22, 2025 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
The Commission’s Horseshoe Crab Management Board is holding a stakeholder workshop January 29-30, 2026, in theSpinnaker Room at the Courtyard by Marriott Ocean City Oceanfront, Two 15th Street, Ocean City, Maryland. The workshop is the central event in an ongoing stakeholder engagement process to inform revisions to the Delaware Bay Horseshoe Crab Adaptive Resource Management (ARM) Framework. The process is being facilitated by Compass Resource Management with the goal of identifying stakeholder values and perspectives in order to develop clear, actionable recommendations for revising core functions of the ARM Framework that reflect stakeholder priorities.
The ARM Framework is a model used to set annual harvest levels for horseshoe crabs in the Delaware Bay region. It is designed to balance the needs of the horseshoe crab fishery with the ecological needs of migratory shorebirds, particularly the rufa red knot, which depends on horseshoe crab eggs as a food source. Within the ARM Framework, three mathematical functions—the Utility, Reward, and Harvest Policy (U/R/H) functions—serve to align the model with the values and interests of stakeholders.
The purpose of the two-day values workshop is to develop quantitative values representing the interests of stakeholder groups for integration into the model as well as consensus recommendations for model updates. Fourteen individuals were selected to participate, representing a broad range of stakeholder perspectives, including commercial harvesters and dealers; biomedical industry representatives; and horseshoe crab, shorebird, and ecosystem conservationists.
A detailed meeting agenda will be posted here ahead of the workshop. Interested parties are welcome to attend the workshop as observers, but space is limited so please notify Caitlin Starks, Senior Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at cstarks@asmfc.org by January 16, 2026 if you plan to attend. For more information on the Commission and horseshoe crab management, please contact Caitlin Starks atcstarks@asmfc.orgor visit https://asmfc.org.
The press release can also be found at https://asmfc.org/news/press-releases/asmfc-schedules-delaware-bay-horseshoe-crab-management-stakeholder-workshop-for-january-29-30-2026/
November 17, 2025 — Conservationists are pressing Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York to approve a ban on the harvesting of horseshoe crabs in state waters after she vetoed the same measure a year ago.
Supporters of the bill, which was passed by large majorities in both houses of the State Legislature last year and again in June, say New York must protect the ancient creatures, whose populations are declining in some places because of overfishing, loss of habitat and climate change, which floods beaches and warms oceans.
Reducing pressures on the crabs would help their ecological role, which includes providing food for migrating shore birds such as the red knot, a dwindling species that the federal government classified as threatened more than a decade ago.
The commercial fishing industry argues that a ban would wipe out livelihoods, damage local fisheries and ignore policies that have led the industry to reduce the number of crabs it uses for bait.
October 30, 2025 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Council (ASMFC) has voted to continue a ban on female horseshoe crab bait harvesting in the Delaware Bay for two years.
Horseshoe crabs are both harvested for bait and bled for their blood, which is valued in biomedical testing for its unique ability to clot when exposed to bacterial toxins.