Saving Seafood

A Planned Restart of a Crab Harvest Pits Conservation Against Industry

November 8, 2022 — For the first time in 10 years, a fisheries regulator is poised to restart the harvest of female horseshoe crabs in the Delaware Bay, a policy change that conservationists say will threaten the survival of the Atlantic species of the red knot, an imperiled shorebird.

On Nov. 10, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will vote on whether to move toward lifting a ban on the female crab catch that had been imposed after overharvesting led to a severe decline in the populations of knots and other migratory shorebirds dependent on crab eggs as a critical food source.

Between 2003 and 2012, the population of female horseshoe crabs in the Delaware Bay was estimated at 3 million to 6 million, according to the commission. Since the ban took effect in 2013, the commission said, the bay’s female horseshoe crab population has rebounded to about 11.2 million.

Under the new proposal, the fishing industry across four bay states — New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia — would be allowed to catch a total of about 150,000 female crabs for bait next year. The fisheries commission contends that the quotas set would not threaten the crab population or the birds that feed on crab eggs. Quotas for the harvesting of 500,000 male crabs would stay the same next year.

In a new peer-reviewed paper, Larry Niles, a co-author and wildlife biologist who has monitored shorebird migration on the New Jersey side of the Delaware Bay for 26 years, reported that the density of horseshoe crab eggs on the bay’s beaches is only about one-tenth of what it was in the 1980s.

“A lack of recovery of horseshoe crab egg and shorebird abundance suggests that horseshoe crab harvest management has functioned to stabilize populations but has been inadequate to promote the recovery of horseshoe crab and shorebird populations, including the endangered red knot, to levels that existed prior to a wave of unregulated harvest,” the paper said.

Read the full article at the New York Times

 

Horseshoe crabs crawl back

June 6, 2016 — Every spring, John Rodenhausen looks forward to seeing a few horseshoe crabs on the beach at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s headquarters outside Annapolis.

This year, Rodenhausen said, thousands of the prehistoric-looking creatures, which resemble spiders more than crabs, were mating on the Annapolis beach in late May. As is their wont, the smaller males attached to the larger female, sometimes four to five at a time — one large carapace surrounded by smaller ones, like points on a star.

“It blew us all away,” said Rodenhausen, the foundation’s Maryland development director. “You’ll always see a few, and you might see a dozen, but we saw thousands. And it wasn’t even a full moon.”

Citizens and scientists are documenting large numbers of the spike-tailed, helmet-shelled creatures on Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay beaches. The uptick could be a sign that once-unpopular management restrictions are working and could help secure a future for the Atlantic Limulus polyphemus, long prized for what it could do for other species instead of for its own virtues.

The eggs that female horseshoe crabs lay on beaches feed large quantities of shorebirds, which can double their weight in two weeks of feasting, helping them to fly halfway around the world. Their copper-rich, blue blood can save human lives; scientists use a chemical found only in the species’ blood to test for bacteria and identify potentially lethal contaminations in intravenous medications. For decades, companies took the animals to grind into fertilizer and raise food. Fishermen backed their trucks up to crab-rich beaches and took what they wanted to use as bait in the conch and eel fisheries.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal