Many of us are quite concerned about the coronavirus outbreak. We are counting on scientists to find a vaccine before it infects our own communities. What this means is that billions of people will demand vaccinations. Each batch of vaccine, whether it is made to prevent the outbreak of coronavirus or flu or measles, must be tested for contamination by bacterial toxin.
Horseshoe crabs, an ancient marine creature that lives in Long Island Sound, has very special properties in their blood that is harvested and used for this purpose. Once the horseshoe crabs are bled, they are released back into the ocean and most of them survive this process, although it clearly disrupts their spawning and can cause a decline in the population. In Connecticut and New York, most of the harvested animals are used for bait in traps to catch eel and whelk. The 12 fishermen that have a license to harvest horseshoe crabs in Connecticut voluntarily report their catch to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The problem is the actual harvesting of horseshoe crabs is not monitored and for every 1,000 animals reported, there are many more taken from the beaches illegally, leaving the population in decline.
The horseshoe crab is not threatened with extinction and is not on the federal list of endangered species. However, one of its ecological roles in the Sound is to lay millions of eggs on our beaches in the spring to feed shorebirds, fish and other wildlife. Unfortunately, this ecological link is broken. Our Long Island Sound horseshoe crab population is so low that this resource is rare and, thus, we have fewer shorebirds and fish in the Sound. If this is of concern to you, please email: deep.marine.fisheries@ct.gov. DEEP is considering changing the state’s horseshoe crab harvest regulations and will hold a public meeting on the issue at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 20, at its Marine Headquarters, 333 Ferry Road, Old Lyme. I hope to see you there.
For more information, or if you would like to participate in annual counts and tagging of spawning horseshoe crabs, please visit www.projectlimulus.org.
Dr. Jennifer Mattei
Professor of biology,
Sacred Heart University
The writer is director of Project Limulus, a community research project studying the ecology and conservation of horseshoe crabs.
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February 18, 2020 at 10:58PM
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Letter: Concern about horseshoe crabs in Sound - CT Post
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