The bait fishery for horseshoe crabs, which are used as bait for eels and sea snails, killed more than six times that, she said. In 2021, that meant about 112,000 crabs died, said Caitlin Starks, a senior fishery management plan coordinator with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. Regulators estimate about 15% of the crabs die in the bleeding process. The blood is often described by activist groups as worth $15,000 a quart (liter), though some members of the industry say that figure is impossible to verify. There are only five federally licensed manufacturers on the East Coast that process horseshoe crab blood. It takes dozens of the crabs to produce enough blood to fill a single glass tube with its blood, which contains immune cells sensitive to bacteria. The crabs are collected by fishermen by hand or via trawlers for use by biomedical companies, then their blood is separated and proteins within their white blood cells are processed. The horseshoe crabs are valuable because their blood can be manufactured into limulus amebocyte lysate, or LAL, that is used to detect pathogens in indispensable medicines such as injectable antibiotics. “There's very clear linkage between horseshoe crabs and the survival of the red knot in the coming decades.” “Making sure there is enough to fuel these birds on this massive, insanely long flight is just critical,” Kraft said. Kraft and other wildlife advocates said the fact the guidelines for handling crabs are voluntary and not mandatory leaves the red knot at risk. The birds, which migrate some 19,000 miles (30,577 kilometers) roundtrip from South America to Canada and must stop to eat along the way, need stronger protection of horseshoe crabs to survive, said Bethany Kraft, senior director for coastal conservation with the Audubon Society. The harvest of horseshoe crabs has emerged as a critical issue for conservationists in recent years because of the red knot. "And they’re having problems because the new kids on the block, us, haven’t learned to appreciate the elders." "They were here before the dinosaurs," said Glenn Gauvry, president of Ecological Research & Development Group, a Delaware-based nonprofit that advocates for horseshoe crab conservation. The animals - not really true crabs but rather more closely related to land-dwelling invertebrates such as spiders and scorpions - are declining in some of their East Coast range. Recent revisions to guidelines for handling the animals should keep more alive through the process, regulators said. And a drive to create synthetic alternatives has yet to succeed in phasing out the crabs from use. The animals are drained of some of their blood and returned to the shore, but many die from the bleeding. The competing interests have set up a clash among researchers, fishing crews and environmentalists over new protections designed to keep more of the crabs in the environment. And their eggs are a critical food for a declining subspecies of bird called the red knot – a rust-colored, migratory shorebird listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The crabs are used by fishing crews as bait to catch eels and sea snails. Its blue blood is harvested for medical researchers and used by drug and medical device makers to test for dangerous impurities in vaccines, prosthetics and intravenous drugs. PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - The horseshoe crab has been scuttling in the ocean and tidal pools for more than 400 million years, playing a vital role in the East Coast ecosystem along with being a prized item for fishing bait and medical research.
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