Let's work together to restore horseshoe crabs to Massachusetts' Beaches!
Let's work together to restore horseshoe crabs to Massachusetts' Beaches!
Deborah Cramer
In 2024, Massachusetts made a small but significant step toward protecting horseshoe crabs by banning their harvest during part of their spawning season. However, the fishing industry is still permitted to kill up to 140,000 horseshoe crabs annually for bait—a practice that severely hampers the species' ability to recover.
These regulatory changes, though insufficient, highlight the vital role horseshoe crabs play in human health and the Atlantic coastal ecosystem. Once so abundant that coastal towns paid bounties to remove them, horseshoe crabs are now so rare that they are considered functionally extinct in many areas. Their decline jeopardizes countless other species that depend on their eggs, including migratory birds like the red knot.
Ending the use of horseshoe crabs for bait is a crucial step toward their recovery and the restoration of balance in coastal ecosystems.
How You Can Help
Support Bill HD.2926 to stop the needless killing of horseshoe crabs for bait. Ask your state representative to co-sponsor the bill and urge your state senator to introduce and support a Senate version. Together, we can give these ancient creatures a chance to thrive again.
Call or text Sharl Heller at (617) 449-8816 for more information and a sample letter/talking points to send to your favorite rep. Thank you.
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Bill HD.2926: AN ACT TO END THE TAKING OF HORSESHOE CRABS FOR BAIT
The Southeastern Massachusetts Pine Barrens Alliance (SEMPBA) is an all-volunteer organization that builds partnerships to conserve the globally rare Massachusetts Coastal Pine Barrens.
Participating in the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (MDMF) Spawning Horseshoe Crab Survey Program over the past five years, we have grown concerned about the low numbers of spawning horseshoe crabs, given their historical abundance.
We want to better understand horseshoe crabs: especially their critical role in human health; how the MDMF determines horseshoe crab regulations and sets limits for their harvest for bait, and their function in the global ecosystem—particularly in the evolution of sustaining migratory shorebirds on intercontinental migrations.
These questions have led us to organize a statewide collaboration to ensure that horseshoe crabs survive another 450 million years and, in that process, restore the web of life to Massachusetts' beaches and estuaries.
Please join us in advocating for horseshoe crabs. Horseshoe crabs need your help!
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View the Massachusetts Horseshoe Crab Collaborative Strategic Plan
SEMPBA Website: www.pinebarrensalliance.org
Find current information about horseshoe crabs in Massachusetts on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Horseshoecrabadvocates/
The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program (NHESP) accepted our proposal to state list the American horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) as a Special Concern Species. The Mass Fish & Wildlife Advisory Board declined to give horseshoe crabs even the minimal designation as an aid to their recovery, as if there is no reason for concern. But citizens ARE concerned. Read the proposal and find out why.
SEMPBA's Proposal to State List Horseshoe Crabs as a Special Concern Species, and our Supplement to the Proposal.
Letters received in support of the state listing:
Media
The Horseshoe Crab Saved Us. Can We Save the Horseshoe Crab? I am Bio Podcast.
Horseshoe crabs have roamed the planet for 450 million years, but they could be running out of time, Renée Loth, Boston Globe.
Connecticut’s elimination of horseshoe crab commercial harvests and Governor Lamont's call for neighboring states "to join this growing coalition and enact similar laws to protect the population in their waters.”
Fishermen capturing spawning horseshoe crabs—Horseshoe Crab Capture: Video by Raymond MacDonald.
At the October 12, 2023 meeting, the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Advisory Committee voted not to support our proposal to state list Horseshoe Crabs as a Special Concern Species based on the reviews of the proposal listed below.
David Smith, Emeritus Scientist, USGS
Kathryn Tuxbury, MS, DVM (in favor of listing)
John Sweka, Ph.D., U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
I think it’s safe to say that now that Massachusetts is now the largest regulatory loophole for horseshoe crabs on the eastern seaboard. It has one of the largest horseshoe crab bait takes, and now two large biomedical companies bleeding horseshoe crabs for LAL, and the largest rent-a-crab program (where crabs are bled and rather than returned to the sea, are sold for bait and killed), and more holding pens (where crabs await bleeding, spawning in the water rather than on beaches) than any other state, and the largest male to female horseshoe crab sex ratios of any state.
—Deborah Cramer
When the Horseshoe Crabs Are Gone, We’ll Be in Trouble.
Deborah Cramer. New York Times. Feb. 16, 2023.
"In the United States, fishermen take some 1.4 million each year, killing almost half for use as bait. Pharmaceutical companies capture and extract blood from the other 700,000 to make the endotoxin test before releasing them to the sea. Up to 30 percent may die as a result. Many others never make it to shore to lay their eggs.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature considers horseshoe crabs in the United States vulnerable to extinction along much of the East Coast and endangered in New England. Over 20 years of regulation of the horseshoe crab fishery by coastal states has failed to restore these ancient animals to their former abundance."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/opinion/drug-safety-horsehoe-crab.html?searchResultPosition=1
Join over 3,000 Massachusetts residents who have gone on record as wanting an end to the take of horseshoe crabs for bait, even as they come ashore to spawn. Horseshoe crabs have suffered a deep decline in recent years and so have the shorebirds and marine life that depend on them for food. Humans depend on an extract from horseshoe crab blood to test medical devices and medicines for toxins, the use of which nearly every one of us has benefitted. It doesn't make sense to use such a valuable creature for bait, especially when you consider that it takes a horseshoe crab 11 to 12 years to reproduce.
Other states get how valuable horseshoe crabs are. The Governor of Connecticut has called on neighboring states to stop harvesting horseshoe crabs, but Massachusetts persists with outdated regulations that benefit commercial fisheries and industry instead of what experts tell us is needed to recover horseshoe crab populations and restore their biological function. Help us stop this madness. Contact Massachusetts Horseshoe Crab Advocates for updates and actions you can take to better conserve horseshoe crabs.
View the Massachusetts Horseshoe Crab Collaborative Strategic Plan
The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program (NHESP) accepted our proposal to state list the American horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) as a Special Concern Species. The Mass Fish & Wildlife Advisory Board declined to give horseshoe crabs even the minimal designation as an aid to their recovery, as if there is no reason for concern. But citizens ARE concerned. Read the proposal and find out why.
The Duke All Swell? team is joined by Dr. David Mizrahi, Vice President of Research and Monitoring at New Jersey Audubon. David is also one of the founders of the Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition, an organization dedicated to ensuring the future of the American Horseshoe Crab.
In this episode we hear from David about the surprising connection between two species: the Atlantic horseshoe crab and an endangered shorebird, the Red Knot. We learn about Red Knot migration, their reliance on horseshoe crab eggs, and how human industries have interfered with these populations. David shares insight about how the Coalition is working to protect the American horseshoe crab and how listeners can get involved.
To learn more about the Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition, visit https://hscrabrecovery.org/.