Horseshoe Crabs and Shorebirds

Abstract

Horseshoe crabs are among the oldest creatures on the planet—their fossil evidence dates from 250 million years ago. Within this span, thousands of species of animals have become extinct, while horseshoe crab populations have survived. However, currently horseshoe crab populations are threatened by anthropogenic activities. Adult crabs are caught to serve two main international markets, the American eel and the conch fisheries. The eel fishery exploits primarily female adult horseshoe crabs with eggs, while the conch fishery harvests both male and female crabs (ASMFC 1998). Other important uses for human needs include the extraction of horseshoe crab blood for cancer research. While use as bait in fisheries means death for the individuals that have been caught, only about 10 to 15 percent of them die if they are caught for their blood and returned to the sea.

It seems that species are only commas in a sentence, that each species is at once the point and the base of a pyramid, that all life is related … And then not only the meaning but the feeling about species grows misty. One merges into another, groups melt into ecological groups until the time when what we know as life meets and enters what we think of as non-life: barnacle and rock, rock and earth, earth and tree, tree and rain and air. And the units nestle into the whole and are inseparable from it … John Steinbeck, from Log from the Sea of Cortez