The additional irony is 1) the value of the horseshoe crab blood lysolate
(which is used worldwide for testing vaccines and other medical materials
for contamination) is well into the $100s of million, and as Jim notes, does
not involve killing the crab --in fact incidental mortality is remarkably
low 2) there are other baits for eels, in fact when I was a grad student and
in my first decade at Maryland Sea Grant, the eel bait of choice was salted
"bull lips" -- i.e. slaughterhouse byproducts. However horseshoe crab gravid
females were found to be a more effective bait by eelers, most of whom sell
to the overseas markets 3) the value of bird-watching -- which was
determined for New Jersey to bolster their regulations on horseshoe crab
take -- exceeded that of the eel industry. So why are the crabs still being
taken? Politics, primarily. Use of horseshoe crabs is *not* a "historical"
or "traditional" practice, but is relatively new as such things go.

Horseshoe crabs are quite interesting biologically, in so far as their
reproductive strategy resembles that of sea turtles more than, say, their
distant relatives the crustaceans. Females take several years to mature, and
they return to spawn over many years. When a female crab is killed,
considerable reproductive potential is eliminated. Thus the rapid decline.
Only a complete moratorium on harvest can reverse the situation and it may
still be too late for the Knot.

When we were in Patagonia last January, a scientist involved with censusing
Red Knot there said that as numbers declined, the birds had initially
abandoned the marginal wintering areas, contracting their range, but that by
2004 even the numbers in the core wintering areas was dropping rapidly.

Gail Mackiernan
Colesville, MD

on 05/08/2005 11:09 AM, Jim and Ann Nelson at  wrote:

> To further clarify, I understand the medical use of horseshoe crabs for
> blood testing products has been going on for many years and can be, and is,
> done without the need to kill the crabs.  Obviously using them as bait
> requires they be captured and killed.
> 
> Jim Nelson
> Bethesda, MD
>